Christmas vs Pulse
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Christmas
Experience the holiday spirit with festive music and a countdown to Christmas. Enjoy beautiful carols performed by real musicians, set a sleep timer, and wake up to holiday cheer. Keep the Christmas spirit alive all year round with this immersive experience.
- Christmas carols by real musicians
- Countdown to Christmas
- Sleep timer
- Wake up alarm
- Background audio
- Fading imagery
- Rearrange song order
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Bring the Christmas spirit to your day with soothing holiday music, festive scenery, and a live countdown to Christmas. Enjoy 22 Christmas tracks, including vocal and instrumental performances, plus a separate Snow Storm sound with its own volume control. FEATURES • Live Christmas countdown in days, hours, minutes, and seconds • A special MERRY CHRISTMAS! greeting on Christmas Day • Festive video backdrops and 25 beautiful photos • Offline music and photo slideshow • Sleep timer with a gentle fade-out • Wake timer • Independent music and sound volumes • Background audio and repeat playback • Gentle snow flurries throughout the control panel Available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. Video provided by Videezy.com.
Pulse
This metronome app offers standard features like tempo setting and accent control, alongside unique timing exercises. It includes practice tools like mute beats, bar muting, tempo shifting, and gradual tempo adjustments for practice and performance.
- Tap tempo setting
- Mute/accent beat control
- Unique timing exercises
- Setlists for practice
- Italian tempo names
- Classical metronome markings
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Pulse is a brand new metronome built from the ground up. It does what you would expect from a metronome but it also comes with unique exercises that are designed to challenge and improve your sense of timing. * Selected features * - Tap to mute/change accents for beats - Tap to set tempo - Built in unique exercises (modifiers) - Arrange songs in setlists for practice and gigs - Select tempo from a list of Italian names (Larghissimo-Prestissimo) - Select tempo from a list of Classical metronome markings * Exercises * There are seven built-in exercises in Pulse designed to help you develop your timing: * Mute beats The metronome randomly mutes beats, giving you less to lean on, forcing you to develop and trust your own internal timing. * Mute bars The metronome randomly mutes for a set maximum number of bars, forcing you to keep time yourself. The metronome is still running, but silently. When it unmutes again, you can check if you are in time or not. * Shift beats This exercise mutes all but one of the beats in the bar. The sounding beat shifts. For example, using a time signature of 4/4: 1 - - - - 2 - - - - 3 - - - - 4 - - - - * Random Start Tempo Playing a piece at slightly different tempos forces you to pay more attention to the timing. This exercise keeps you on your toes by altering the tempo each time the metronome starts. * Accelerator This exercise lets you practice a difficult piece/passage at a comfortable tempo and then increase the tempo gradually. Set the tempo to a low setting where it is possible to play the piece correctly. The modifier will keep this tempo for a set number of bars and then increase the tempo with a set number of BPMs. * Decelerator This exercise does the opposite of Accelerator. Set the starting tempo and the modifier will keep this tempo for a set number of bars and then gradually decrease the tempo with a set number of BPMs. * Rollercoaster The tempo varies and the goal is to follow as it goes up and down, like a rollercoaster. This is an advanced exercise forcing you to listen and pay attention to the tempo. It's very fun as well.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Pulse at 100% against Christmas's 44%. Pulse also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.7) and chart position (#171 vs unranked). Christmas's advantage is price (Free vs $0.99) and update cadence (monthly vs every 6 months). On ads, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Christmas is free to download; Pulse costs $0.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Pulse holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Christmas has 51 ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 44% of Christmas's written reviews are positive against 100% of Pulse's.
Christmas ships an update monthly, Pulse every 6 months. The most recent releases landed on November 7, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Christmas | Pulse |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $0.99 |
| Rating | 4.7 (51 ratings) | 5.0 (4 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 44.1% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 51 — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Monthly — better | Every 6 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Best chart rank | — | #171 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac, Apple TV — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 147 MB | 5 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | XME Inc. | thoor software AB |
Customer experience
Christmas
Pulse
Bugs and requests
Christmas
Reported bugs
13 issues- No "beautiful fading imagery", just white screen
- No video on Apple TV
- Background missing on Apple TV version
- Cannot change wallpapers on Apple TV
- App only plays the first song and no more
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- Music keeps playing when app is closed
- App goes blank/black
- App won't load/crashes after update
- App won't startup
- App won't open
- Crashing reported months ago
- Application never appears after download
- Update broke the music functionality
Requested features
13 requests- Changeable wallpapers
- Video on Apple TV
- Fix Apple TV background
- Add "Greensleeves" song
- Add new music for New Year
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- Make it louder
- Add a timer
- Ability to erase recorded files
- More Christmas carols
- Next song starts automatically
- Pause button
- Scroll through song list while listening
- Update for iOS 4
Pulse
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Christmas
No in-app purchases
Pulse
No in-app purchases









