iPulse3.0.5

My sense is that it’s a beautiful utility capable of providing a wealth of information. I’ve been using this for as long as it has been around, compared it against other similar utilities for system status, but keep coming back to it. It’s very customizable, but I’ve got a favorite I’ve modified that gives me time, date, memory usage, CPU activity and has bubble messages if I want to drill down into the details. Even then, it is capable of so much more...

My sense is that it’s a beautiful utility capable of providing a wealth of information. I’ve been using this for as long as it has been around, compared it against other similar utilities for system status, but keep coming back to it. It’s very customizable, but I’ve got a favorite I’ve modified that gives me time, date, memory usage, CPU activity and has bubble messages if I want to drill down into the details. Even then, it is capable of so much more...

No trial? No buy!

HIGHLY configurable and easy on the resources. Very cool utility.

I used to use the excellent iStat Menus but wanted something that used less menu space, and iPulse 3 is really really perfect for that. The window packs in lots of info in an immediate visualisation (probably not for everyone), and uses negligible resource. Lots of tweakability, well worth it!

iPulse has been updated to 2.1.10 and there have been system updates as well. Regardless of "who" was responsible prior, when running iPulse the lockups would occur. When not running iPulse, no lockups. It may have been a buggy call back to Mac OS X or just a poor implementation of that call in the shareware. iPulse now *appears* to be a better citizen. Is the problem gone, time and usage will tell.

A re-ranking. First and foremost the system lockup problem: If you run iPulse on a laptop and use iDisk or other servers, you will find that iPulse will habitually lock your Mac forcing you to control-command-power hard reboot to get free. iPulse will check the mounted volumes (hard drives) including remote server volumes periodically to update the usage status. When it does this and the volume is no longer available, it will not time out nor release the query call for disk usage statistics. Here is the scenario: You are at work and you have a server mounted. Maybe it is your Windows NT corp server, Mac OS X corp server, your iDisk cloud server, or your TimeCapsule volume. You close the lid to sleep the Mac and it sleeps. Pack it in your bag, jet for the door. You then later open your Mac (on the train, at home, etc.) and you have no network connection or a different network connection that does not allow you to get to one of the servers that you were connected to before. iPulse will go brute force against that server asking for statistics and not let go. That server volume appears busy and the Finder cannot let go either. You establish an Internet connection (wifi, ethernet, cell modem, etc) and now nothing seems to be able to talk to the network even though you do have a connection as verified by the Network Preferences in your System Preferences. Then you check your process list (command-option-escape) and note that iPulse is not responding. You figure, ok, just kill it but that thing is a vampire and drains your network connection dry and cannot be killed. Kill Kill Kill, nope nope nope. Then you see your Finder go non-responsive. Kill, nope. Other processes, as they access network resources start to go red including iChat, Pages (oops, update check...) and others. Some kill, some do not. You try launching network utilities that just seem to bounce indefinitely (they are trying to open network connections and the network stack is gridlocked by iPulse, sorry charlie) Ok, long story short, your Mac is Tango Uniform, time for the three key salute: command-control-power. This time you take iPulse **out** of your login items and come and write a lengthy review about one of your favorite little utilities becoming more pain that it is worth. Sad Monday, lost an old friend.

2.1.8 seems fixed problems I was having (see below). Otherwise, did not see any other resource monitoring tool on Mac, even remotely close to iPulse by UI/Usability/Information per screen real estate/Price ratio! Well deserved 5 stars in each category!

Yes, it takes a few minutes to learn the interface but once you do this app is great. It tells you everything activity monitor or x resource graph does but in less space and it is infinitely more customizable. I have been running this for 4 months and it has never crashed or caused me problems. You can also access activity monitor, terminal and network utility with just a right click. Also, instant access to processes, memory and network activity. What a great tool.

2.1.7 has problems displaying network speeds on my MacBook Pro - negative speeds, ridiculously large speeds, etc. 2.1.6 seems OK.

i hate "conceptual" interfaces. i spent ten minutes trying to figure out where i was supposed to click to get the information i was looking for. even loaded each of the alternate designs included.... still couldn't do it. nor could i figure out what the menubar was supposed to be indicative of. went straight in to the trash.

Are the previous reviewers using iPulse itself to read CPU load? In which case, yes, it reads 15 to 20% (omm, a p'book with Tiger), but check Activity monitor and it's only using around 2%.

I think iPulse is great but every version I've tried since 2.0.2 on Tiger has given me enourmous trouble after an hour of letting the app run. There seems to be a memory leak that is allowing iPulse to consume up to 95% of my iBook's resources. Please get this issue fixed, because the newest features are quite nice except for the fact that they become unusable if the app eats up so much CPU power.

Great eye candy, and accurate too.

I wonder when Iconfactory will repair their FTP server !!!! (it is the slowest I know). I have to download it more than 5 times to test their software.

I'll just wait for a FREE Dashboard Widget...

It's simply a GREAT monitor, very useful and cool. It's skin-able-d from iconfactory too. G-R-E-A-T.

This may be the best non-obstrusive system monitor interface for Mac OS X. People who are criticizing maybe do not understand the meaning of this tool. The idea is to a a global overview of what's happening, not to have an oversized window with statistics and numbers. And iPulse does this better than any other system monitor. And if you need more precise info, just move the mouse over a graph and a translucent window will appear with more technical information. This is the best shareware I bought since a while.

a graphical beauty....but not very readable....

Drop dead beautiful!

Wow. I mean... Wow. This has got to be the coolest application of Mac OS X. I mean... Wow. If I were a PC user, and saw this app.. I would say.. "Should I stay or should I go now?". But like every catchy pop song.. the answer can never be found. Its the question that drives Us. Seriously, this is a cool application. It really beautifies the working environment by excitingly displaying your computers various... shall we say 'moods'. On "My Other Computer"... when it is really moody.. all I see is a blue screen. This is much nicer than that. Macs rock, PC's suck. (Objectivelly speaking). Love, Troy

I use old iBook with 800x600 max res and new panther system, with a typical OS X large size font menu. Two plus two, you will get annoyed by how easy the menu items such as clock, battery status, modem status and battery status disappear being pushed by, say, Word X menu? With iPulse 2.0 it solves everything with a really elegant way. Clock+date and battery status are combined together in a pulse-like-intelligent-look circle. CPU, RAM, modem speed are shown in an attractive colorful gauge. Warning indicator (such as if you have 10% battery remain) is very useful. The form (appearance) of the gauge can be change easily, either in its size (max 128), opacity, or it's skin (use downloadable jackets). Overall, it's an excellent piece of software that make me wonder why Apple does not implement this in the OS. The systems indicator (CPU, RAM, etc) seems to be carefully calculated, not just showing how many percentage free resources you are having. And finally, a last but not least feature is that you can see the details of each system components in an elegant fade-able transparent pop up window upon hovering the mouse on the gauge. Nice touch!

This program is just too cool for its own right. Design wise I think there is something here that developers/programmers could all learn from quality interface design. Although system moniter apps tend to be bland quite often, iPulse breaks the barrier with having a feature of changing "jackets". It makes you proud of owning a mac once again.

Nice upgrade from 1.0. Thanks.

Dave - You can use the system hotkey to enable/disable the ignore mouse feature. Go to the Global preference pane and set it (there's also a hotkey to turn the window on/off.)

Your are able to disable clicking on the floating window, which is great! However, some of us disable the dock icon by going through the package contents. If I do both then there's no way of accessing the preferences. Some sort of solution to that would be nice.

This really is a kick ass program. It should come standard w/ panther!

I've been using iPulse since the 1.0 release, and think it's great. Just a quick glance tells me how my system is performing. Ignore the confused guy below- use it for a bit, and you'll see how simple and logical the display is. There are many options to control how it behaves, so it will only display what you need to know, and it won't clutter up your desktop unless you want it to. It's worth every cent, and one more reason to support shareware.

Not a bad idea, but I find the whole interface too confusing. Also there's enough stuff on my desktop without adding more - better off putting itself in the menu-bar like 'MenuMeters' which is my app of choice, and it's FREE.

This makes "top" look like a dinosaur. This is a great system monitoring tool for anyone who wants to keep an eye on there system.

Beautiful little application