Show HN: Boreal – A New iOS Client for Hacker News

https://medium.com/@boreal/introducing-boreal-5fc6066d86db?source=most-recommended-published_user

by jchomali • 11 years ago

47 64 11 years ago

jchomali12• 11 years ago

Hey guys! I am Juan Chomali, This is the new client I have been working on with Nestor Palao for the last months. I hope you like it and if you have any feedback please let us know at @getBoreal in twitter or drop as some lines at contact@getboreal.com. Have a great day!

marvel_boy• 11 years ago

Newbie here. Downloaded your app. I like a lot the design and layout.

nrpalao• 11 years ago

Thanks Marvel! Really appreciated your love, those comments encourage us to continue working :)

unknownzero• 11 years ago

iOS 8 only if that matters to anyone. I had apparently never updated this iphone ( not my main phone ) and never noticed until now, so thanks for the reminder Juan!

bnejad2• 11 years ago

You didn't notice you were a full iOS version behind? :D

nestorp15• 11 years ago

Hahaha, now, you have a (hope big) reason to upgrade your iPhone's OS version :)

gingerlime• 11 years ago

Looks really clean and nice. Great stuff.

How do you plan to monetize it? It says "in app purchases" but couldn't spot any paid-for options.

A few small comments:

* The login option is slightly confusing, because it has a big Boreal on top. Am I logging in / creating an account for Boreal or HN ?

* On the announcement blog post you have a typo "So, what do you l[o]ose trying it?", and I think you should anyway say "What do you have to lose by trying it?" (I'm not a native English speaker though).

* I wish there was a way to jump straight into the comments. It's not uncommon for me (and I believe others) to start off by reading the comments, and only then the article.

jchomali12• 11 years ago

Thanks for your feedback! We already implemented a new way for navigating into comments in the next version. The next version will be a big update with a ton of new features and is coming next week!

acheron2• 11 years ago

I still can't figure out how to get to comments at all. What am I missing?

capkutay• 11 years ago

It's not uncommon for me (and I believe others) to start off by reading the comments, and only then the article.

+1. Thats usually how I know whether the title's claims are valid or not

luisivan• 11 years ago

This is really cool, I love its design!

nestorp15• 11 years ago

Thanks bro! As always working hard to provide the best experience and details

iCHAIT• 11 years ago

Nice work guys. I really like the UI. Till now I was using - https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/hacker-news-yc/id713733435?m... for using Hacker News on my iPhone.

This too is a great application for using HN, however its design is more orthodox.

Great Work :)

nestorp15• 11 years ago

Thanks man! We will continue improving our UI and the features we provide. Btw, we suggest you to compare what your actual HN client lets yo do and what Boreal does haha, you will notice!

davidcollantes• 11 years ago

Have you tried MiniHack? I think it will provide a better comparison.

pstadler• 11 years ago

I agree, MiniHack is the cleary the top iOS client for HN.

nw832• 11 years ago

Is there any way to mark articles as read so that they don't occupy the screen any more?

nestorp15• 11 years ago

No, but each article you read automatically is archived in "Viewed" section for an easy access.

Btw, thanks by your feedback. We will add a switch in the 1.1 version (coming in a few days) to auto-delete the viewed posts from your main feed and archive them in your viewed tab only :)

nw832• 11 years ago

That'd be great! Looking forward to it.

bnejad2• 11 years ago

My take:

* App performance / design is phenomenal. Great job.

* Show comments/point counts on the stories in the list views

You have an interesting monetization model... Personally, I would get rid of all the tiers and just have your default free + 3.99 full unlock. I don't imagine many people reading hackernews will fall in between and want to pay money while still seeing ads. Your pricing is fine though I think for the full version.

nestorp15• 11 years ago

Thanks Ben! Really appreciate it :)

We are currently thinking about how to improve the experience getting into comments, on the 1.1 version (coming in a few days) we will add a quick access to comments, directly from the feed.

dang• 11 years ago

We met Juan when he came through SF a few weeks ago and showed us this app. It's impressive! For a couple of high-school students, it's damned impressive.

Users flagged this story, presumably because some of the comments look suspiciously like astroturfing. I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and override that in this case, but guys, you need to realize that you can't promote your stuff on HN that way. Astroturfing accounts get banned, and usually we'll ban the submitters' accounts and the site as well. Even if we don't do that, HN users—who have a nose for this sort of thing and really don't like it—will react negatively to your post, and that's definitely the opposite of what you want.

I have a feeling it was just your friends trying to give you a boost, which is very nice of them, but please tell them that HN is the sort of place where that doesn't go over well. Instead, learn to let your fine work speak for itself.

harisamin2• 11 years ago

Nicely done. Earlier this year I launched a Mac HN client because i wanted a better desktop client experience http://mackernews.com Will check out your app :)

fabmilo• 11 years ago

I was interested in something like that. How is going the app? can you share some insight ?

harisamin2• 11 years ago

its going ok, not flying off the shelves but seems to be working well and ppl that have bought it seem to like it :)

graffitici• 11 years ago

Good design! And great work!

I wish I could see the number of votes a post got on the main screen though.. I like the filtering, but sometimes I just want to look at the numbers and decide for myself

jchomali12• 11 years ago

Thanks for the feedback, we are including that in the next version.

Matt3o12_• 11 years ago

The app looks great and you guys really have a thing for good designs. I tried out your other app "Stocky" and wanted to give you s quick feedback. It probably has the best welcome screen I've ever seen. The download size with one MB is also really impressive (the HN app has 20, for the record). Here are a few things about the stocky app though:

- the dollar sign is not visisble for the apple stock. - the +x.xx% is not aligned nicely (bit.ly/1IXTayl)

Back to the HN App. Could you add a way to customize the font size for the comments? The font is really small and I haven't figured out a way to change it. Also, I'd like to see a "content-based-view" as it is implemented in this app https://appsto.re/us/7uRIQ.i you should also allow use, if you add this function, to have the content-focused view as the default one.

Otherwise, great job you too!

jamescostian• 11 years ago

This app is great! I love the design, I just have a few little problems:

- Comments don't appear to be nested beyond the first level - Clicking on the sign up page brought me to HN's site, but it didn't bring me to their sign up page - In the comments view, the back button at the top left appeared to be informative text instead of a back button to me... What if you added an arrow before the text ("<") like Apple does in many of their apps (e.g. the settings app)

But I love the way the app looks overall and I'm glad I've found an awesome HN reader app!

Oh and P.S. the app gave me an error when trying to post this - "There was an error while trying tu publish your comment. Please try again."

jchomali12• 11 years ago

Thanks for that. I will take a look on commenting and include the back button icon too.

lobster_johnson2• 11 years ago

Looks pretty good! Initial complaints:

- Text is way too small. Needs to be configurable.

- Not sure I like this font as a body text font, either. Can you make this an option?

- To get from the article view to the comments requires two clicks. Should only be one click.

- Byline text is hard to read, needs more contrast.

jchomali12• 11 years ago

Thanks for your feedback. We are including some of this in our next version. So stay tuned!

lobster_johnson2• 11 years ago

Cool. Forgot one: Collapsing of comments. The client you need to beat, really, is MiniHack [1].

[1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/minihack-for-hacker-news-sim...

thameera• 11 years ago

This is great! It's rather suprising why an all-round HN app app isn't available in the App Store.

What does the up arrow in the top right of comments section supposed to do?

P.S. I also got the same error as jamescostian when trying to comment from the app.

jchomali12• 11 years ago

The button is to uproot the post. In the next version we will add a button to uproot directly from the feed

jchomali12• 11 years ago

upvote

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tolas• 11 years ago

Why does the bottom share button not bring up the full share menu? Also, for share by email please auto populate the subject line. Other than that it looks pretty good so far.

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nestorp15• 11 years ago

Sure, thanks for your feedback, we will add this in the next update (1.1 coming in about a week)

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kposehn• 11 years ago

So. I immediately upgraded to the Black Hat plan (no ads forever) and would say you are charging way too little or should not use in app purchase.

We HN users are a dedicated base of people. While you need data to decide this, I think you will find that most people will pay more than $3.99 for no ads. I think most of us are happy to pay for a quality product.

Outside that, I really hope that this will become my go-to for hacker news :)

Caveat: for some reason I cannot post a comment from the client but the error is not verbose. It also says "tu " instead of "to". Just a note.

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jchomali12• 11 years ago

We are trying to solve this issue. Thanks for your feedback!

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tbrock• 11 years ago

I really like minihack as an iOS HN client. It's very polished.

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Apocryphon• 11 years ago

Why "Boreal"?

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nestorp15• 11 years ago

why not? The decision was taken in relation to our colour palette and the look and feel of the login (there is a beautiful video transition of Ibiza by night)

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ssgelm• 11 years ago

This looks really nice. It'd be cool if you added the 1Password extension to make it easier to log into HN!

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nestorp15• 11 years ago

Thanks! Sure, we will include 1Password support for login into the next version coming in about a week :)

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madetech• 11 years ago

The app looks great, though have a few comments:

* It doesn't feel like HackersNews. I think you should follow some of the elements from the web app (Orange colour, HN logo etc)

* I wasn't comfortable providing login credentials. How are you handling login / storing my details?

* I'd like to see more posts per page. Feels harder to scan read the posts than on the current HN site

* Filter in top right looks like a location / near me icon. Didn't expect it to display filter options

* How do I see my profile? I'm logged in, but no indication that I am

* Having to click on comments to see 'no comments' feels odd

* The number of upvotes / comments per post is important, feels very buried (couldn't find upvotes)

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nestorp15• 11 years ago

Hey, thanks for your attention and feedback :)

In the next version (1.1) coming in about a week we are going to include: -Clear upvotes and comments number from the main feed -Quick access to comments from the main feed -Quick upvoting for posts from the main feed -Switch to auto-delete posts viewed and only show them in the "Viewed" tab -Collapse comments -LogIn improvements -Commenting and posting bug corrected -Follow users to receive push notifications when they post something

Version 1.2 (some more weeks): -Dynamic text: adjust text size as you want -Different fonts: we will add in addition to the current Avenir, Open Sans, Proxima Nova and Helvetica Neue

Stay tuned for more updates! As we said, Boreal is a client build from users FOR users.

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thomasfl• 11 years ago

Is there a collection of all the different HN clients out there? A HN example seems to have become as common as a hello world example among javascript frontend libs.

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garbad• 11 years ago

Very nice!

I for one welcome the lack of HN colours, although the orange might look nice as a secondary/accent colour used sparingly. The grey is lovely.

I'll keep using the app and look forward to the update coming shortly.

Well done.

PS. There's a typo on the error posting modal dialogue box - says "tu" rather than "to". (There was an error trying tu publish your comment....)

I've been getting this error a lot, so I went to the web site to post this.

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trialstartup• 11 years ago

Simple and Nice

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nestorp15• 11 years ago

Thanks man!!

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Lumus• 11 years ago

Hey Guys,

Very much a newbie here (first comment in fact!) and am trying to break into iOS App development myself so it's nice to see you guys doing well!

Love the app, great design. My only "gripe" if you can call it that is how slow some of the animations are. For example the view sliding up from the bottom after tapping the action button is smooth but (to me at least) feels like it's lagging somewhat.

Either way looking forward to the next update!

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jchomali12• 11 years ago

Thanks for your feedback. We are going to make the animations a bit faster.

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nestorp15• 11 years ago

THAAAANK YOU GUYS! Really appreciate all your kindly words and feedback. We are working hard to improve as much as we can the experience using Boreal, new update coming in a few days with all what your requested: upvotes number from the main feed, quick access to comments from the main feed, quick upvoting for posts from the main feed, switch to auto-delete posts viewed and only show them in the "Viewed" tab, collapse comments, LogIn improvements, commenting and posting bug corrected, and much more things coming.

Btw, if you want and you think Boreal deserves it, support us by buying our "Black Hat Hacker Plan" that lets you read unlimited news (simply go to Settings > Store > Boreal Store).

Enjoy! :)

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nvartolomei• 11 years ago

Looks like the Login does not work, or only for me?

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nestorp15• 11 years ago

Yeah, bug reported, some users are experiencing problems with it. We've just fixed this and will be corrected in the next update coming in a few hours (hopefully no more than one day)

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Polyphonie• 11 years ago

I'm enjoying the app immensely.

Are you guys planning at implementing dark/night mode at some point? One of the thing that makes MiniHack (the other iOS HN client) a joy to use especially later on in the day is that the screen automagically turn dark according to the display brightness. May I suggest that instead of going with black background, use the grey similar to the one in Reeder:

http://i.imgur.com/NvbDpHY.png

And another thing- I can't seem to be able to post my comment from within the app. If this comment is posted it's because I've published it via the website:

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nestorp15• 11 years ago

Thanks mate! Really appreciate your words :)

We will be adding some features in the next updates, for example tomorrow the v.1.1 will be out with a quick access to comments and upvotes from the main feed and a feature that lets you follow users in order to track their activity.

For the v.1.2 (out in one or two weeks) we are planning to add night mode (as you said), 1password integrations, collapse comments and some other fixers, you, users, requested. We are here to build together the best experience.

Btw, currently to access comments, until the new update, you have to open a post, and in the NavBar (at the right side) you have a icon that opens our actions menu > comments > reply and post new comments

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jchomali12• 11 years ago

Thanks for all your feedback. We just released a new version that includes a lot of improvements and some new features that I am sure you will love.

+ Tap and hold a post to upvote.

+ Dynamic text support.

+ Follow users to receive a notification when they submit a story.

+ Access to comments from the feed.

+ Swipe comments to vote.

+ UI improvements.

+ Bug fixes.

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nestorp15• 11 years ago

Hooray guys!

We've just sent our 1.1 version with a big update that includes a bug fixes and some great improvements like a quicker access to comments and the number of votes from the main feed, the ability to upvote and downvote comments. Also, we added a feature you will love, with Boreal, now, you can follow users in order to track their usage and receive a push notification each time they post something.

We want to continue improving the app so if you have any feedback please let us know in @GetBoreal or in contact@getboreal.com.

Enjoy! -the Boreal team <3

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Show HN: Boreal – A New iOS Client for Hacker News

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