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Show HN: A free HN iPhone/iPad app I launched a few months ago

40 points by marketer 15y ago

I actually started it June 2011 to learn iOS, launched it in September, and have been steadily adding features and making improvements. It's something I use every day and I hope other people find it useful. Enjoy!

zeratul 15y ago
Yes, I like it and I use it. Thank you for the app. I wanted to ask, though, did you know that "upvote" and "save a story for later" means same thing on HN? What was the reason for adding "star" button in your app? Couldn't you use this instead http://news.ycombinator.com/saved?id=marketer http://news.ycombinator.com/saved?id=marketer and have just the "upvote" button?
- marketer 15y ago
  That's a great idea, thanks. Right now the 'star' button just creates a local bookmark, but if you're logged in, it should also send an upvote.
pkamb 15y ago
Why is it free?
- marketer 15y ago
  This type of app is not particularly monetizable. Most people would use the actual website instead of paying $0.99 cents for an app. Plus, it was a fun project to learn iOS and it costs me very little to host or maintain.
  - Jimmie 15y ago
    How hard was it to interface with HN? Do they provide an API to work with? Reddit has a very nice API, one of the killer features is that if you take any reddit page and add ".json" to the address it'll spit out pure json at you. For example: http://www.reddit.com/r/all http://www.reddit.com/r/all becomes: http://www.reddit.com/r/all.json http://www.reddit.com/r/all.json
    - marketer 15y ago
      Screen scraping. HN doesn't have a JSON feed, but it has fairly simple and predictable HTML.
      - joe_the_user 15y ago
        How did you process the html?
    - duck 15y ago
      There is an unofficial api at http://api.ihackernews.com/ http://api.ihackernews.com/. It use to have a lot of timeout issues, but seems to be running a lot better now.
      - joe_the_user 15y ago
        Having sampled it, I'm not sure of the value of a broken api that might improve later.
    - joe_the_user 15y ago
      I'm playing with the Reddit api. It works but what it gives you is complete dump of their page, 150K, say. It would be nice to get just the tops of the comment trees instead. But hey, its there...
  - runjake 15y ago
    I paid 99 cents for news:yc for the iPhone.
    - joelhooks 15y ago
      I happily paid $4.99
Varun06 15y ago
Any plan to put this app on Android?
mikeevans 15y ago
Any plans to add Instapaper support? I like your app, and use it often, but I'd like to read HN articles on the train sometimes.
- marketer 15y ago
  Not yet, but I'll definitely look into it for the next release.
maxgaudin 15y ago
I've been using it for a while and love it. Thanks for the back button. Is it possible to integrate the Reader function of Safari in iOS or is that only possible within Safari? Also, I would pay for this especially given the other attempts at the same app.
- dustinrodrigues 15y ago
  I too am grateful for the back button update. The day before you released the update, I followed some links and wanted to go back, only to be taken to the front page of HN. Then I saw the update and it solved the exact problem I was having.
mutagen 15y ago
Thanks for the continued work on this, the navigation improvements are great. I'll join the choir of users asking for rotation support for the HN discussion. I can read the portrait view but at times the landscape magnification would be nice.
- marketer 15y ago
  Yeah that view should rotate. It'll be in the next update.
geuis 15y ago
Looks good. One point though, the text color scheme is atrocious. Dark grey and darker grey is nearly illegible. Try an off-white text to add some contrast.
chetan51 15y ago
I personally like the interface of news:yc better, except for the comments page, which can be improved. Do take a look at it and see what you can learn and improve on.
- marketer 15y ago
  Do continue using the news:yc app.
switz 15y ago
I've been using this for a month or so. It's great, but I wish it would show the point value of each news story.
- marketer 15y ago
  The latest version does that.
jlank 15y ago
marketer, great app I use it daily.. my only wish is that it included more sharing options instead of just email.. twitter would be nice, or at bare minimum the ability to copy the url of the post so I could send it around. Keep up the great work!
runjake 15y ago
I'm using your app on the iPad. A few suggestions: - Let me see my comment history & other people's replies. - Get a new color scheme for the story list. It's very hard to read, maybe that's just my colorblindness. The colors don't go together well. They're too dark for my tastes. Use an app such as Instapaper or news:yc for examples of good color flow. - List the number of comments for each story. - Option for bigger text -- at least in the main story list view. - Adjust the username/logout thingy in the upper right corner to something more elegant. How it currently works is wonky and reminds me of the worst examples of Android UX. - Most importantly, charge for your app. 99 cents or 1.99 or whatever. You should gain from your work, however small. I'll be your first customer.
- wdewind 15y ago
  As a counter point, I love the colors it makes it much easier on the eyes when I'm reading in bed. I wish the rest of the pages (comments etc.) would be like that as well. And I too would buy your app if you started selling it.
yusefnapora 15y ago
I really enjoy your app; nice work! One thing that would greatly improve it for me is a button to switch between the article view and the comments. I usually want to read the comments directly after reading an article, and it's a bit annoying to have to go back to the article list. Not a deal-breaker, but it's something I've grown used to in Alien Blue (the reddit client) and I miss it when I use your app. Also, I was initially confused by the back button in the article view, as it is visible even when it's impossible to go back, so the button did nothing when I first pressed it. Once I followed a link in the article it was apparent what it was for. You can easily hide it based on the result of UIWebView's -[canGoBack] method. Anyway, thanks for the app!
davidjade 15y ago
In general I like the app but the comment view text is too small for me on an iPhone/iPod. I also wish that the comment view would allow for rotation (as that usually increases the font size and improves readability of text layout). These issues caused me to ultimately switch to another HN app (but I still have yours installed in the hopes that this will change).

40 points by marketer 15y ago

zeratul 15y ago

Yes, I like it and I use it. Thank you for the app. I wanted to ask, though, did you know that "upvote" and "save a story for later" means same thing on HN? What was the reason for adding "star" button in your app? Couldn't you use this instead http://news.ycombinator.com/saved?id=marketer http://news.ycombinator.com/saved?id=marketer and have just the "upvote" button?

marketer 15y ago
That's a great idea, thanks. Right now the 'star' button just creates a local bookmark, but if you're logged in, it should also send an upvote.

pkamb 15y ago

Why is it free?

marketer 15y ago
This type of app is not particularly monetizable. Most people would use the actual website instead of paying $0.99 cents for an app. Plus, it was a fun project to learn iOS and it costs me very little to host or maintain.
- Jimmie 15y ago
  How hard was it to interface with HN? Do they provide an API to work with? Reddit has a very nice API, one of the killer features is that if you take any reddit page and add ".json" to the address it'll spit out pure json at you. For example: http://www.reddit.com/r/all http://www.reddit.com/r/all becomes: http://www.reddit.com/r/all.json http://www.reddit.com/r/all.json
  - marketer 15y ago
    Screen scraping. HN doesn't have a JSON feed, but it has fairly simple and predictable HTML.
    - joe_the_user 15y ago
      How did you process the html?
  - duck 15y ago
    There is an unofficial api at http://api.ihackernews.com/ http://api.ihackernews.com/. It use to have a lot of timeout issues, but seems to be running a lot better now.
    - joe_the_user 15y ago
      Having sampled it, I'm not sure of the value of a broken api that might improve later.
  - joe_the_user 15y ago
    I'm playing with the Reddit api. It works but what it gives you is complete dump of their page, 150K, say. It would be nice to get just the tops of the comment trees instead. But hey, its there...
- runjake 15y ago
  I paid 99 cents for news:yc for the iPhone.
  - joelhooks 15y ago
    I happily paid $4.99

Varun06 15y ago

Any plan to put this app on Android?

mikeevans 15y ago

Any plans to add Instapaper support? I like your app, and use it often, but I'd like to read HN articles on the train sometimes.

marketer 15y ago
Not yet, but I'll definitely look into it for the next release.

maxgaudin 15y ago

I've been using it for a while and love it. Thanks for the back button. Is it possible to integrate the Reader function of Safari in iOS or is that only possible within Safari? Also, I would pay for this especially given the other attempts at the same app.

dustinrodrigues 15y ago
I too am grateful for the back button update. The day before you released the update, I followed some links and wanted to go back, only to be taken to the front page of HN. Then I saw the update and it solved the exact problem I was having.

mutagen 15y ago

Thanks for the continued work on this, the navigation improvements are great. I'll join the choir of users asking for rotation support for the HN discussion. I can read the portrait view but at times the landscape magnification would be nice.

marketer 15y ago
Yeah that view should rotate. It'll be in the next update.

geuis 15y ago

Looks good. One point though, the text color scheme is atrocious. Dark grey and darker grey is nearly illegible. Try an off-white text to add some contrast.

chetan51 15y ago

I personally like the interface of news:yc better, except for the comments page, which can be improved. Do take a look at it and see what you can learn and improve on.

marketer 15y ago
Do continue using the news:yc app.

switz 15y ago

I've been using this for a month or so. It's great, but I wish it would show the point value of each news story.

marketer 15y ago
The latest version does that.

jlank 15y ago

marketer, great app I use it daily.. my only wish is that it included more sharing options instead of just email.. twitter would be nice, or at bare minimum the ability to copy the url of the post so I could send it around. Keep up the great work!

runjake 15y ago

I'm using your app on the iPad. A few suggestions: - Let me see my comment history & other people's replies. - Get a new color scheme for the story list. It's very hard to read, maybe that's just my colorblindness. The colors don't go together well. They're too dark for my tastes. Use an app such as Instapaper or news:yc for examples of good color flow. - List the number of comments for each story. - Option for bigger text -- at least in the main story list view. - Adjust the username/logout thingy in the upper right corner to something more elegant. How it currently works is wonky and reminds me of the worst examples of Android UX. - Most importantly, charge for your app. 99 cents or 1.99 or whatever. You should gain from your work, however small. I'll be your first customer.

wdewind 15y ago
As a counter point, I love the colors it makes it much easier on the eyes when I'm reading in bed. I wish the rest of the pages (comments etc.) would be like that as well. And I too would buy your app if you started selling it.

yusefnapora 15y ago

I really enjoy your app; nice work! One thing that would greatly improve it for me is a button to switch between the article view and the comments. I usually want to read the comments directly after reading an article, and it's a bit annoying to have to go back to the article list. Not a deal-breaker, but it's something I've grown used to in Alien Blue (the reddit client) and I miss it when I use your app. Also, I was initially confused by the back button in the article view, as it is visible even when it's impossible to go back, so the button did nothing when I first pressed it. Once I followed a link in the article it was apparent what it was for. You can easily hide it based on the result of UIWebView's -[canGoBack] method. Anyway, thanks for the app!

davidjade 15y ago

In general I like the app but the comment view text is too small for me on an iPhone/iPod. I also wish that the comment view would allow for rotation (as that usually increases the font size and improves readability of text layout). These issues caused me to ultimately switch to another HN app (but I still have yours installed in the hopes that this will change).