Ask HN: Can you help us beta test our HN client?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9503146

by allending • 11 years ago

14 4 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hi everyone. For the past couple months, we've been working on an mobile HN client (iOS for now) that we think the HN community deserves, and am putting some final touches on it.

We need your help now. We'd like to fill a limited number of spots (~30) for TestFlight beta testers to get broader test coverage, as well as feedback about what you think of the app.

Drop me a note at allen at snappymob dot com or tweet @alding if you are interested.

stephenr• 11 years ago

It will be nice to see a good HN client for iOS. I've tried many and they're all very light on features, particularly stuff like posting comments.

Nilef• 11 years ago

Just tried it and after testing almost every option on the app store, this is by far and away my favourite HN Client - I wish they were on the Alienblue team.

The menus are intuitive, bookmarking is a god-send (Would love to be able to export this though)

A theme with the traditional HN colouring would be brilliant as it's really grown on me but the default theme isn't far off.

I have no real complaints. If I was nit-picking, I would say the section titles (Top stories/New Stories/Show/Ask/etc) are a little too close to the iOS status bar and sometimes my finger was registering on the status bar instead of the category and as a result, not registering my touch.

Apple Watch support might be nice, if you can get it right - Notifications for top stories (Like what Pushbullet does for the HN channel) and the ability to scroll through posts and comments. Not for everyone, though.

Love it!

allending• 11 years ago

Thanks for the comments so far. We're aggregating and tracking them.

I should have mentioned - The app has a Pro unlock, but TestFlight betas builds don't actually charge anything to you when you 'purchase' the unlock. We're also going to try and make sure out Beta testers get to keep the Pro unlock even when installing the App Store version

bazillion• 11 years ago

Posting using the client -- definitely the best client for iOS that I've seen so far. UI is very snappy and things are organized logically so I didn't have to "learn" the layout.

Some thoughts:

-I'd like to be able to edit my profile

-As you know, having the search feature will be an important addition

-Can't collapse comment threads. I'd like a button in the whitespace on the same line as the commenter that I could click to collapse.

-Saving draft comments would be helpful. When I was typing this I had to select all -> copy and go back to another screen to check something, then paste it back in. Some type of way of marking drafts directly in the thread would be cool. I think it would have the advent of allowing me to start a draft in a comment thread that I was interested in replying to later, and then be able to return to it when I had more time. This would be coupled with listing out "drafts" in the sections up top.

-Special coloring for the original posters posting in the comment threads. At least for the names, if not changing the background color of the comment a shade or two.

-This one is not as feasible, but saving versions of comments when I've come back to the same thread. I'd like a diff on comments in case someone edits something, so I can replay it back to the original comments I saw. Maybe only saving the histories for the last 100 threads, since if I'm returning to a thread it wouldn't be 100 thread views later.

Ask HN: Can you help us beta test our HN client?

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