Hourly News is a simple little single-purpose app for the iPad and iPhone. It’s a podcast app that brings hourly news updates from a small but blue-chip list of sources and presents them in bare-bones basic interface that’s a pleasure to use.

I only just discovered the app a couple days back thanks to a post by MG Siegler, but it has become an instant favorite on my iPad mini.

The sources included in the app are NPR , BBC, CBC, ABC, CBS, WSJ, ESPN, VOA, SRN, FOX news, and Bloomberg Radio – so you get good coverage of pretty much all major news topics.

Here are some of the other slick features the app offers:

– It lets you edit which sources you want to have active and decide which order they’re shown in.

– It starts playing the latest news summaries automatically when opened, and happily plays in the background when you switch away from the app.

– It can be controlled with the standard music controls in the Multitasking bar – to pause and play it, jump forward and back among sources and so on. And it automatically moves to the next feed when the previous one’s roundup finishes.

The app’s interface couldn’t be more intuitive. The Play and Pause buttons are massive and right in the center of the screen, and a quick swipe left or right moves quickly between sources.

If you’re looking for a simple way to keep up with the top news stories throughout the day on the iPad, it doesn’t get much easier than Hourly News. I’m checking it often and finding it a real pleasure to have on my iPad.

Here’s an App Store link for Hourly News; it’s priced at $0.99 and is a universal app designed for both iPad and iPhone.