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Show HN: My iPad Hacker News Client, Hacker News Paper
- conradr 15y agoThanks - I've used - 3HLAMPWWE3X6. I'll test and provide a review in a bit.
- conradr 15y agoReally like the app. I echo what was said before, don't like the header. I get what you're trying to do with newspaper, though a cleaner font would work better. Look at the UK gaurdian app in newsstand for inspiration. I would also suggest images in the article though again it may take away from the newspaper feel. The flipping doesn't always work, it opens an article on the odd flip try. I would love to see: - Instapaper integration - Pull in the comments if possible - isn't that what makes HN,Hn? - Bookmarking - New threads instead of just front page - Number of comments so far - A very light tint of colour on the buttons, 10% blue? All in all great experience, with a tweaks this could be a winner!
- derwildemomo 15y agofirst of all, great work. I really like the the presentation, something different. I've got a few issues with the app though: - It's hard to flip pages, I opened articles often when I tried to flip one. Seems the gesture recognition needs some refinement - I don't like the font and the header. I think it looks a bit cheap. At least the font in the sub-headline could look nicer. - Get rid of those standard rounded rect-buttons in the article view. Doesn't need too much effort to style them a bit, and it makes a huge difference. Thanks for this app, well spent money :-)
- sammcd 15y agoThanks a lot for your feedback! The gestures, better fonts, and buttons are three things that are already high on my list to fix, but its really good to hear it from someone else. Be looking for an update shortly.
- sammcd 15y agoThanks a lot for checking out my app. Here are a few promo codes for anyone interested. EFERTFJWWR7W 36XTN3E9MNYN LAKJ99K6RFNY X4ERRNY46NTE 3HLAMPWWE3X6
- sidwyn 15y agoused LAKJ99K6RFNY. cheers
- timeuser 15y agoCodes are all used.
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- MaysonL 15y agoused HLRAM3LPA7XK
- edgarhenriquez 15y agoused K47EP4FFK7PY
- audioHack 15y agoUsed LT3A7P3NJEX3 thanks!
- username3 15y agoHJR9N3AKN6XA JKLPNAF7L3YN were used already.
- sidwyn 15y agoThanks for the code. Gave it a spin but found the fonts a little too jarring, especially the main font. There needs to be more contrast too. I know you're trying to imitate an actual newspaper, but perhaps play a little more with the hues of gray? Right now it all seems a blur to me.
- sammcd 15y agoThanks for the feedback. In the next version I will definitely try to do something to make it look a little cleaner.
- yatsyk 15y agoadded to http://hnresources.com/apps/#iphone http://hnresources.com/apps/#iphone
- sammcd 15y agoThanks a lot!
- iamgilesbowkett 15y agoA) is http://hacker-newspaper.gilesb.com http://hacker-newspaper.gilesb.com in there? B) I used to curate a pretty large list of Hacker News mashups that you might get some mileage out of: http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/11/hacker-news-mashups.html http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/11/hacker-news-mashups...
- iamgilesbowkett 15y agoThis is a blatant copy of my web app Hacker Newspaper. http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2011/11/imitation-is-sincerest-form-of-flattery.html http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2011/11/imitation-is-sincer...
- sammcd 15y agoFeel free to email me at sam@sammcd.com if you would like to discuss this more. I just want to say that I did not use your app as a source at all when designing my app, but I did use newspapers.
- iamgilesbowkett 15y agoIf this is the case, why did you not use a gothic, New York Times-y font for your header graphic, such as is much, much more typical for newspapers than the font you did use? Why does your header graphic appear to be nearly identical to mine? Why is your functionality nearly identical to mine? It's just a massive coincidence?
- sammcd 15y agoI simply went to http://www.dafont.com/ http://www.dafont.com/ and searched until I found a font I liked, thats all that happened here.
- mikeash 15y agoA newspaperish grid layout hardly seems like something that's unique enough to go around accusing someone of ripping it off from you. Or did you rip off the New York Times et al?
- iamgilesbowkett 15y agoNewspaper grid layout, downloads the text of the stories, he even used a very similar font in his header graphic to the font in my header graphic -- and the font in my header graphic was a whimsical indulgence because it doesn't really look like a newspaper header font at all. The New York Times and many, many other papers use heavy gothic fonts for their names, and I think that if he got the design from there, he would have done the same.
- pgambling 15y agoNice work! I'm using the app right now to add this comment. I agree with all the feedback so far, but it's still worth the money even in its current state.
- sammcd 15y agoThanks a lot!
- ch0wda 15y agoWhat percentage of the profits are you giving "iamgilesbowkett" since you've created a facsimile of his idea from 2009?
- mikeash 15y agoYes, how dare two different people both have the same idea of applying a newspaper theme to a web site.
- jensnikolaus 15y agoSuper!
- midnightsun 15y agoIf you prefer a free (and high-quality) app, check out this one: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-reader-technology/id463699245?ls=1&mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-reader-technology...
- vtail 15y agoWe seem to be having different metrics for 'high-quality'. The first screenshot of the iPad version in the App Store is a list of 24 elements in a small font. I think the developer is missing the point.
- FameofLight 15y agoGet real, its all about the implementation and execution, although I have not seen the but seems like (from comments) the guy did a good job in execution and action. We all have ton's of ideas, techcrunch can be newspaper like, mashable can be magazine like, its all your execution with little bit pinch of idea.
- bluekeybox 15y agoThanks, just downloaded! My 2 cents: 0. Nice minimalism. 1. The main body typeface is needlessly hard to read (words have weird kerning with some letters sticking together a lot). I strongly think that the body font should be as readable as possible, simply since it is going to be read a lot! Pick the most readable font out there (or maybe the second most readable). 2. The "Return" button is hard to tap when holding the iPad in both hands. iBooks solves this problem by having the entire left edge tappable; not sure what would work best in this app. 3. Are you familiar with the Flipboard for iPad? (you probably are). I think it is beyond awesome. All magazine/web mobile apps should learn from that app. 4. That every article pops out from the bottom edge of the screen (UIModalTransitionStyleCoverVertical ?) gets annoying after a while. The animation where the whole screen whizzes by from the bottom up every time you tap is more tolerable on a smaller screen like the iPhone. I would rather prefer an animation with a "zoom" effect with the article expanding from its location in the grid to the entire screen; or maybe something else you can think of. 5. It is annoying that comments have to be shown in a browser window which takes a while to load.
- sammcd 15y agoThis list is one of the first list that seems to really coincide with the things that bother me about the app. I do like the idea of making the left side tappable, and I really do want to change my animation and hope to get time to fix that soon. Just so you know when viewing a story you can tap the headline to go back. This feature was mostly added for myself, I hope to get a designer to design me something that communicates returning to the front page better than my current methods. I can tell you've done some iOS work cause you can see some of the shortcuts I took to ship this on time. I hope to fix these soon :)
- peteforde 15y agoCongrats on the launch. Unfortunately you've chosen to name your app the same thing Giles very similar app from 2009 is named. I truly believe that the onus is on you to Google the name you want to use before you launch. Heck, just to make sure there isn't competition - much less something with the same name. That isn't good for either of you. Perhaps you should strongly consider changing the name of your application.
- raganwald 15y agoIt is truly unfortunate that this app so closely resembles Giles’ work. In hindsight, everything seems obvious: “Hacker News... As a Newspaper.” Yet nobody did it before Giles, and now somebody else has done it after Giles. It reminds me of the talk about how obvious the iPhone UI is, such that Google wasn’t copying iPhone but just proceeding along “obvious” lines. Yet, it seems that they were busy proceeding along the obvious line of imitating Blackberry until the iPhone became a hit, then they were proceeding along the obvious line of imitating an iPhone. The author of this work seems to be saying that he did this entirely independently. I am prepared to accept his word for that, which is why I use the word “unfortunate.” There are so many truly new and novel things to invent, it is a great shame that two smart people put work into inventing the same thing instead of giving birth to two different ideas.
- iamgilesbowkett 15y agoI disagree, but I'm not going to dis anybody for being too generous, too trusting, or too fair, and I appreciate your attempt to smooth the waters.
- iamgoat 15y agoConsidering Hacker News is a developer heavy crowd, I'm surprised a second and third version hasn't come up. I've wanted to develop the same thing myself just to learn how to build an iPad app. And I'm sure my other ideas for creating different views of Hacker News are nothing special. It's all about execution. I've seen the other one before and considering the basic style of it (newspaper page with multiple articles layout), it wasn't pretty enough to make me want to install. I really like the look of this app and look forward to trying it out. Also, kudos for him getting the domain. I figured it would have been taken already.
- Inufu 15y agoIs iOS 5 really necessary? I didn't upgrade yet because of my jailbreak, so I can't use the app :-/
- sammcd 15y agoCurrently it is because of the page view controller, but I'm thinking about dropping that in the future. I'll definitely being iOS 5 only at that point.