Hacker News | ICombinator - Hacker News for the iPhone

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	ICombinator - Hacker News for the iPhone (icombinator.net)
	69 points by ca98am79 455 days ago \| 44 comments

25 points by bdotdub 455 days ago | link

Hey cool, I created this :) How did you find it? It's still buggy. I was going to release it in a couple of weeks.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

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6 points by babyshake 455 days ago | link

This does exactly what it should and no more.

Great job.

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5 points by bdotdub 455 days ago | link

UPDATE: Hey everyone, I've updated iCombinator with a couple of things:

1. http://icombinator.net/ now forwards to http://www.icombinator.net/ GAE doesn't allow naked domains anymore

2. Added an icon for the web clip

3. Enabled standalone status (thanks doctyper!)

Anyone have better artistic skills for the icon? I'm open to suggestions :)

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2 points by dc2k08 455 days ago | link

you can have this one if you like: http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/6992/icombinatortc2.jpg

looking at their logo on the main site, perhaps this should be a little more svelter: http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/7205/icombinator2nj1.jpg

also this one: http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/3392/icombinator3vo8.jpg

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1 point by dc2k08 455 days ago | link

scratch the rest: http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/3820/icombinator5wt8.jpg

try that one. you can have any format you like if you want it. its a vector.

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2 points by wensing 454 days ago | link

It's the flux capacitor!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_capacitor#Flux_capacitor

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1 point by dc2k08 454 days ago | link

non-1.21 giga-watt version: http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/4145/icombinator7xl0.jpg

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1 point by zack 434 days ago | link

you rule for this

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3 points by sant0sk1 455 days ago | link

I've been using this from my iPhone for a few weeks after stumbling upon it from your profile page.

Thought it was public knowledge or I would've submitted it myself! =]

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3 points by ca98am79 455 days ago | link

I like the name - pretty clever

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3 points by ca98am79 455 days ago | link

I did a google search for my username and found it. I like it. news.ycombinator.com sucks with the iPhone and I like your site a lot better - much easier to read. Sorry to force you into the spotlight early, but it seems to work fine for me. It makes reading hacker news on the iPhone A LOT better. Thanks for creating it.

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1 point by pygy 454 days ago | link

Personally, I prefer this layout on my computer too (except for the lack of a bigger left margin).

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1 point by bdotdub 455 days ago | link

Not a problem. Glad you enjoy it :)

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10 points by doctyper 455 days ago | link

Excellent, but you missed adding some goodies that would really make this stand out.

1. Add a webpage icon to the app. 2. Enable standalone status, so the app launches fullscreen instead of in Safari.

More info:

https://developer.apple.com/webapps/docs/documentation/Apple...

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3 points by bdotdub 455 days ago | link

Awesome. Thanks for the suggestions. Will look into it when I get back home :)

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2 points by bdotdub 455 days ago | link

Just added both. The icon nothing special, but its better nothing. If anyone has anything better, let me know :)

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8 points by qeek 455 days ago | link

Now it's time to redesign the actual Hacker News site.

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4 points by j2d2 455 days ago | link

Interesting. Hacker News is already very light but I like the bigness of important things and smallness of others when I view it on my phone.

PG, I like this enough that it'd be neat if you gave us something similar so our account info can go through you.

It doesn't seem to work as http://icobinator.net btw. The www seems required.

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3 points by bdotdub 455 days ago | link

Yup, working on the DNS stuff. Yeah, I just thought it'd be better on the eyes :)

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2 points by venuem 455 days ago | link

If you have blogs and are looking to get them formatted for the iphone or android platform. check out http://venuem.com

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2 points by danw 455 days ago | link

Thats brilliant, thank you. I love the instapaper integration. Looking forward to seeing the new/threads/profile pages if you're adding them :D

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2 points by lhorn 455 days ago | link

I think a better (and cheaper) way to do this would be to create a custom CSS file and assign it to ycombinator.com in Safari.

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2 points by puffythefish 455 days ago | link

Thanks, I've been looking for something like this!

I just have one gripe: http://icombinator.net (without the www) doesn't work.

Other than that it's perfect

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1 point by unalone 455 days ago | link

He said elsewhere that he's going to try to get that working tonight - it's on the App Engine, so it's tricky.

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2 points by tzury 455 days ago | link

I wish ycombinator will be one day that elegant

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1 point by AndrewWarner 455 days ago | link

I wish it was easier to comment. I don't so much want to read the news as I want to interact with it.

Still, I love this. Every news site should offer this kind of iphone option.

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1 point by kriyative 455 days ago | link

Also, check out http://i.venuem.net/ychn

VenueM is a general purpose solution for turning any RSS feed into a clean looking iPhone web site.

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1 point by sh1mmer 455 days ago | link

I've not really had trouble reading yCombinator on my iPhone and I can't vote up stories on your 3rd party site.

So I appreciate the sentiment but I don't see the point.

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2 points by wfarr 455 days ago | link

While I "see the point", I think you have a legitimate complaint with regards to the voting.

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1 point by lpgauth 455 days ago | link

Than you! I used to use the website Buxfer made (http://buxfer.com/yc/) but it has been down for a while... Not too sure what is going on there..

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2 points by AndrewWarner 455 days ago | link

Well done. I read news on my phone, not on my computer. I wish other news sources realized that. I can't tell you how many news sites simply crash my iphone, but here are three: Portfolio.com, the Wall Street Journal, and Vanity Fair. It's nuts.

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1 point by pchristensen 455 days ago | link

With Instapaper you can read stuff in text-only. Plus you can read disconnected (prob more useful for Touch than Phone)

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1 point by phr 455 days ago | link

WSJ stopped crashing so much when I disabled javascript, but that's pretty drastic.

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1 point by t0pj 455 days ago | link

Excellent.

Now if I could only cut and paste using my iPhone. ;)

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1 point by geuis 455 days ago | link

I'm almost done with a same-domain bookmarklet that reformats HN for the iPhone within the browser. No 3rd party sites will be required, and you can interact with your account completely from the site.

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1 point by unalone 455 days ago | link

Nice! It keeps the look and feel and works smoothly: just what I want from an iPhone adaptation.

Is it tough making the sliding transitions? Or is there some basic code that handles that?

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3 points by bdotdub 455 days ago | link

I used iUI (http://code.google.com/p/iui/). There's a patch for smoother transitions somewhere in there that I've planning to put in.

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1 point by dmpayton 455 days ago | link

Fabulous!

Request: Please add support for non-www domain. It took me a few minutes to realize why I was getting 404'd on my phone but not in FireFox.

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3 points by bdotdub 455 days ago | link

Yup, I'm trying. It's on Google App engine and its a little tricky with the DNS stuff. Will try to figure that out tonight.

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1 point by sidsavara 455 days ago | link

I don't have any iPhone, but this is spiffy. Even in my normal Firefox window ;)

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1 point by trickjarrett 455 days ago | link

Well done sir, I will be using this on my ipod touch.

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1 point by bdotdub 455 days ago | link

Glad you like it! Does the screen transition a little choppy on yours?

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1 point by trickjarrett 455 days ago | link

No flicker at all, it seems to run pretty smoothly thus far.

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1 point by icombi 455 days ago | link

This works well on Android G1 as well, as most iUi web apps do. I wonder though if it's best not to popup a new page when clicking through to an article. With G1's global Back button it's not too bad to quickly go back, but on iPhone, you need tap-swipe-tap.

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