Show HN: Dead simple Hacker News reader for iOS

by mertdumenci • 13 years ago

41 89 13 years ago

Osmium• 13 years ago

Looks nice from what I can see but £1.49 is too much to buy just to try it out (at least for me).

The major pain point with the current viewer I use is difficult-to-read comment threads. I can't see any screenshots of comment threads in your app. Are they collapsible? Is the hierarchy clear?

Can you post comments yourself in-app? I remember seeing another app at the same price point that did that.

Good luck anyway!

mertdumenci15• 13 years ago

Hey there, developer of the app here.

The app doesn't support comments for now, but we're working on implementing it. I wasn't personally expecting this much response, it was meant to be a read-only, simple app but I ended up missing comments in my own personal usage too. Don't worry, they're in the works! :)

Sorry for the confusion! If you don't want to wait, news:yc (http://newsyc.me/) is an awesome app that does comments already!

publicfig2• 13 years ago

I can't really figure out the functionality of this, so I'm not going to buy it to try it out. If you can't comment on it, then it's worth checking out http://hn.premii.com/ . It's a web, based app, but if you save it to your home screen it removes the Safari chrome and looks and works as a standalone app. You can look at its source here: https://github.com/premii/hn

If you can comment on this, it should be interesting. I really wish you showed more of the functionality of the app though.

mertdumenci15• 13 years ago

Heyo, developer of the app here.

http://hn.premii.com is absolutely mind blowing — it's lightweight, web based and super fast.

The functionality of Hack Later is its speed and deep read later (currently Pocket only) integration. Comments are in the works, too! Also, I'm probably biased but I think it's pretty good looking :)

alariccole9• 13 years ago

It does look nicer than most. For better or worse, though, I find the discussions to be more informative than most articles ;)

thekingshorses4• 13 years ago

Just got approval notice. hn.premii.com is available in app store. Going to submit new binary with share functionality tonight. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-yc/id713733435?l...

publicfig2• 13 years ago

Oh awesome! Are you just wrapping the mobile site and utilizing iOS APIs or are you doing anything more? with this version?

bradleyg_2• 13 years ago

Nice! Can you change the name as it appears on the home screen too? It's currently "hackerNews4"

aaronem• 13 years ago

Bug report for you, on the "Save to home page" version at least (I haven't tried the App Store version):

When you click a link from one of the app's inbuilt views to the story page or the Hacker News comment thread, you don't have a "back" button, and I can't find any way other than force-quit-and-restart to get out of it.

(It'd also be nice if, at least on iPhone, the app could produce the same effect as <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" /> when viewing external pages; as it is now, such viewing involves lots of tiny text and scrolling, without the Safari reader interface available to mitigate.)

Nice app; I look forward to using it, once the navigation's fixed.

bradleyg_2• 13 years ago

Can you view comments with this app?

mertdumenci15• 13 years ago

Not for now, sorry :( We're working on it, though!

photoGrant• 13 years ago

I like it, unfortunately it's a little buggy scrolling up and down the feed. It's a shame it cost me a couple bucks to find that out but whatever I can do to support improvements!

Looks great!!

edwellbrook4• 13 years ago

Thanks! I'm the designer of the app. We'd love to hear any feedback you have, and we're taking everything people say on board for future releases. desk@brushedtype.co for any feedback or support!

ltcoleman2• 13 years ago

it does not display comments. I bought it because i enjoyed the look, but looks like until they get comments, i doubt many will install.

NathanKP• 13 years ago

Yeah I'm in the market for a new Hacker News reader because the one I was using before has broken since I installed IOS7 and no longer shows the full text of comments.

But this app doesn't show any comments yet so its still got some ways to go.

ltcoleman2• 13 years ago

It does have pocket integration though. So in summary, a beautiful UI to read HN articles with pocket integration for read later, but no access to comments

mertdumenci15• 13 years ago

This was the exact aim of the app when we started making it. But with all the requests about comments, we're definitely thinking it ;)

jbrooksuk• 13 years ago

Since HN doesn't have a native API, it's real difficult to work on applications like this. Comments always seem to cause issues for apps, how do you handle them?

mertdumenci15• 13 years ago

The app doesn't currently do comments. But you're right — scraping comments will be non-trivial for me. The current setup involves a simple scraper - caching layer, abstracted from the iOS app.

bennyg3• 13 years ago

My app, https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/news-yc/id592893508?mt=8, does comments pretty darn well. Let me know what you think!

smackfu3• 13 years ago

I'm still trying to figure out which Hacker News reader is a labor-of-love for the developer, as opposed to a coding exercise to see if they can make a few bucks which is abandoned quickly when the answer is "no".

alariccole9• 13 years ago

Mine is free, and freshly rebuilt for iOS using Text Kit and background refresh. It's free and no in-apps: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pivit/id705715915

marcosero2• 13 years ago

Nice

ashishgandhi• 13 years ago

I like this one. I had never heard of you so I built Simple Hacker News (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/simple-hacker-news-simple/id...) last year.

The big feature I want is I want a way to see what I've already read. I think this is the first app (other than mine) that I know does this.

Haven't played around long but I like you can collapse and expand comments. Is there a way to default them all to be expanded?

EDIT: You need a way to refresh comments.

@Replies: I'm glad you guys like it. Looks like I'll renew my Developer Program membership then. It's due in less than a week.

bennyg3• 13 years ago

Mine's definitely a labor of love - I use it daily, and hardly ever use the browser version unless I want to comment on something. I'm working on adding commenting/submitting/voting at the moment, and should have that done shortly. Personally, I think it's the most beautiful HN reader on the App Store, but I may be biased. It's free too.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/news-yc/id592893508?mt=8

EDIT: All of the production code is available on Github as well.

https://github.com/bennyguitar/News-YC---iPhone

tharris0101• 13 years ago

Thank you for your client. I also use it every day and have even contributed to it. I also never use the browser version on my phone anymore.

tsycho• 13 years ago

Thank you so much for your reader AND especially for open sourcing your code (which I just found out from your comment). I use yours everyday and have occasionally found issues. Now with the code available, expect some pull requests :)

asselinpaul2• 13 years ago

Cool that's awesome. Instapaper and/or Evernote support would be so great :)

wwwwww• 13 years ago

Comment are essential, would buy with comments.

mertdumenci15• 13 years ago

Hey there, we're planning on adding comments in the near future.

Camillo3• 13 years ago

Now is the perfect time to launch this, because the other HN reader is having trouble displaying comments. But you need to show us how comments are handled in your app.

dubcanada• 13 years ago

Which one?

Camillo3• 13 years ago

news:yc

salemh• 13 years ago

I'm using HackerNode for the iPhone, seems to be working.

Though I dislike the comment tiering (non-indentation / hard to track).

Any suggestions for iPhone?

On Android, Hacker News 2 has been wonkey with loading comments, but I love the comment layout.

Built by Matt Bishop: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=airlocksoftware

alariccole9• 13 years ago

Comments aren't handled in this app. Try appsto.re/i6xC4GD -- best threading out there.

Camillo3• 13 years ago

Hm, that's a nice-looking app, but news:yc's interface seems superior to me.

gigantor• 13 years ago

For a paid app, the lack of basic core features (i.e. to simply view comments) indicates a lot of work needs to be done. The existing free readers out there are a bit more capable.

I ended up buying it since I'm still looking for a good HN reader out there that does all of: indenting comment threads, gives you the choice of browsing directly to the story without going through comments, and displaying key story information beside the story, such as the number of votes.

mertdumenci15• 13 years ago

Hey there, I'm the developer of the app.

Firstly, thanks for buying the app! I wasn't personally expecting this much response, it was meant to be a read-only app, but I personally ended up missing comments as well. I understand your concern. I've good news though : we started the work on implementing comments :)

bitserf• 13 years ago

I just bought it, because I like where you are going with the design.

However, I would echo the need for comment support.

Check out how http://hn.premii.com/ does comments, I find that quite readable compared to news:yc.

The ability to log in and reply to comments would round out the use case that I used to use other apps for.

thekingshorses4• 13 years ago

You can try my app here http://hn.premii.com/

Or app store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-yc/id713733435?l...

pa5tabear• 13 years ago

I want an app that will save posts/links. And let me comment.

Do any of them do that?

edwellbrook4• 13 years ago

Currently the app doesn't support comments, although we have this planned and intend to implement them very soon. For now though the app is focused deeply on saving posts and links, so Hack Later still might be worth checking out, if you haven't already.

marcosero2• 13 years ago

Looks really nice. Please open source it and let the community improve it! I would love to add simple comments :)

mertdumenci15• 13 years ago

Hey, thanks! That's @edwellbrook rocking the design. We had a conversation about open sourcing it but we ended up choosing not to, dealing with bad, bad guys just cloning the repo & submitting to App Store looks hard. :(

Comments are planned though!

apierre3• 13 years ago

£1.49 for a very basic HN reader is a bit premature. I like that it is iOS7 designed though.

A couple of suggestions:

- Comments - Instapaper or similar

mertdumenci15• 13 years ago

Hey, I noted your suggestions down. Thanks!

Comments are definitely something planned.

apierre3• 13 years ago

I just downloaded it, I really like the look and feel. Please add a search feature as well and you have the perfect HN reader ;-)

asselinpaul2• 13 years ago

Instapaper would definitely be good

mertdumenci15• 13 years ago

Hey Hacker News, developer of the app here.

Thanks for the awesome response! The most requested feature is comments by far, totally understand it. Comments are a planned feature, and we intend to implement them as soon as we can. For now though the app is focused deeply on saving posts and links, so Hack Later still might be worth checking out, if you haven't already.

Also, promo codes are fun.

W4LEYM7ENYLN AL43JW7JWJXY 6NM77R6X3KLF KTXTY46XRM7R 4Y63MWJMAMNT

Enjoy!

crb4• 13 years ago

The last one was used and I've taken the second to last. Thanks!

You wouldn't have got me otherwise - I'll be honest, my thought pattern lies in the _davidsmith camp, and when I saw your app was £1.49 (more than £0), I moved my attention on.

dferlemann• 13 years ago

Thanks! Pocket integration is definite enough for me to convert. I will wait for the update on comment feature.

mertdumenci15• 13 years ago

Thanks! We love Pocket :)

alariccole9• 13 years ago

A shameless plug, but my app is brand new, free, and shows comments legibly. But the #1 feature: background refresh.

It uses new APIs in iOS 7 to preload the front page before you open it.

Pivit - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pivit/id705715915

mertdumenci15• 13 years ago

Hey, developer of the app here.

I tried out your app, looks awesome — congrats! Background refresh and comments are planned for Hack Later. Feature request for Pivit : I'd love if the web view had some controls (back, forward, refresh etc.) and the comments had some contrast, it's really hard to focus to a thread.

And yes, this is a shameless plug.

nayefc2• 13 years ago

The app will not preload every time new items come in. This is a common misconception about iOS 7. iOS 7 schedules these apps to run very infrequently to save battery. Some times it will take many hours to do a background refresh.

mertdumenci15• 13 years ago

Or it may not even refresh at all. From the docs, it seems like it's a pretty intelligent API that optimises itself with usage.

alariccole9• 13 years ago

I've got a few apps built using this API, so I can chime in. It is definitely based on usage patterns--the more you use a particular app, the more often it will refresh. It's also certainly based on battery life at the time, but also the requirements of the app.

With Pivit, since it's such a compact fetch, it'll happen more frequently than if you were, for instance, downloading photos. I check HN a lot, so for me, the app is always up to date. It does take a bit of learning time for the OS to know your patterns, but it is well worth it--it's really a great new API.

smackfu3• 13 years ago

This is nice, but I wish the main post listing was a bit denser. It ends up with a lot of white space since it seems to be using fixed height cells which are sized for longer titles.

ahmett• 13 years ago

Very cool idea Mert! I purchased without hesitating. Would you consider adding Instapaper integration for save list? -alp

edwellbrook4• 13 years ago

Thanks for buying the app! We've got Instapaper support planned and hopefully coming soon!

i_pinkerton• 13 years ago

Awesome. would really love to see instapaper

tharshan09• 13 years ago

Someone make exactly the same, for android.

adduc• 13 years ago

Check out https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.premii.hn , it's a fairly clean version for Android.

minihack• 13 years ago

Shameless plug XD

My app MiniHack dose all.

Nested comments, collapsible comment thread, login to upvote, reply to comment, one tap to open story or comments. Share to Pocket, Instapaper, Pinboard, Evernote, etc. Search hacker news, view the best of pages, ask, new, jobs. Instapaper and Readability mobilizer support, and more.

And I am working on the new iOS 7 update right now, including UI redesign, a new slick dark theme, better sharing (pinboard tags, evernote auto complete), and more.

https://itunes.apple.com/hk/app/minihack-for-hacker-news/id6...

avalaunch• 13 years ago

I love MiniHack. I tried at least half a dozen HN apps before finding it. It's by far my favorite. The collapsible threads feature can come in really handy when faced with a really long thread of comments that you're not interested in.

alariccole9• 13 years ago

This was one of my favorites. Try out my comments system as well--I collapse everything by default, because I found it's easier to tap to expand than it is to scroll forever. It seems odd, but it works really well for me. appsto.re/i6xC4GD

mokkol2• 13 years ago

I still have iOS 5.1 Will it work on my phone? For some reason I can't check before buying....

mrjaeger• 13 years ago

Does not seem to be the case:

"Compatibility: Requires iOS 6.0 or later."

lovskogen• 13 years ago

I just love http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/ on the iPhone.

crb4• 13 years ago

Public service announcement - now updated for iOS 7! I stopped using it when I upgraded (moved to hn.premii.com) as it felt... "jarring".

crb4• 13 years ago

Edit: sorry, I was wrong; the new look I saw is actually the web browser look (tested on Chrome/desktop), and it still looks the same on iOS.

crb4• 13 years ago

mertdumenci: what's the typeface, and were you influenced in choosing it by anything (Vesper?)

edwellbrook4• 13 years ago

Hey, I'm the designer of Hack Later. The font we went with is Avenir, a font natively available on iOS. Other apps we intend to release under the BrushedType name will also use this font. We're both quite fond of it, and it's nice to stray from Helvetica once in a while.

alariccole9• 13 years ago

Avenir is nice. I need to look more into how to use fonts other than Helvetica with Text Kit automatic font resizing. For Pivit that was one of the must-have features--the ability for those who like larger/smaller fonts to be able to change them system-wide. I just recently learned that this is also available with custom fonts.

miguelrochefort• 13 years ago

Shameless plug:

Hacker News for Windows Phone: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/hacker-news/a527...

andrewcarter• 13 years ago

This app looks great, I've tried / bought just about every HN client looking to replace the one I was using for iOS 6 that hasn't updated, but they all look or function terribly. This one looks amazing, all it needs is comments. I've bought it and will happily use it while I wait for those features. Thanks for the work!

supercoder• 13 years ago

This app is terrible.

Load it up, blank screen.

Pull to refresh, says 'Error Loading'.

Try again, and then just crashes.

Have some respect for your customers and test properly before you release. What a waste of 1.99

Show HN: Dead simple Hacker News reader for iOS

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