Punchr Page Monitor Can Stay On Top Of Important Web Pages For You

Punchr Page Monitor (Free) by Bitmelter Ltd is a simple utility that will keep an eye on the Web pages you care about while you move on with your life. The app alleviates the stress involved with constantly refreshing Web pages and hoping there's an update — a struggle we all encounter at some point.

The concept is basic, only involving a main list of websites you want to keep track of, along with a built-in browser. Adding a website is as easy as tapping the “New” button, entering a URL and navigating to where you want to go, and then pressing the “Activate” button in the top right corner and selecting a region to monitor. After doing this, you'll be prompted to select the area of the Web page to monitor. Perhaps it could be the price of something on Amazon, the availability in Apple's refurbished online stores, the weather, a specific feed, or any other Web page.

For every page you set up for monitoring, a push notification will be delivered to your device, and the app will save a version of the new and updated pages. You will also be able to see which pages have been updated at a glance, along with when they changed.

While Punchr is by no means a dud, the version available at the time of this writing has some kinks to iron out. First and foremost, push notifications are spotty. I was getting them when I first downloaded the app, but they seem to be on and off for reasons I can't identify. On the contrary, two friends who are also using the app seem to be having no issues at all. Also, the in-app browser can be slow at times, although this isn't too big of a deal since pages only have to load once. After that, they are saved every time an update occurs.

Regardless of whether push notifications are your thing or you just prefer to check the Punchr app, since this is still easier than constantly visiting and refreshing pages, Punchr has the potential to be a useful utility if it works for you. However, if your notifications don't work just like how they sometimes don't pop up for me, you may be out of luck. Especially for an app that focuses on providing instant notifications, there is no excuse for unreliability like this. I hope this will be fixed in the future.

If you want to give it a try, Punchr Page Monitor is available for iPhone in the App Store for free.