
Ask HN: Best Hacker News client for iOS? - qubex
I&#x27;ve encountered some grief finding a suitable Hacker News client for iOS (iPhone and iPad), which is bizarre because a cursory search on the App Store reveals so many of them.<p>My (if I may say so myself) fairly basic criteria are that the app I choose must function both on iPhone (preferably optimised for iPhone X) and iPad <i>and</i> allow me to log into my account to comment as myself.<p>This has turned out to be quite a chore. I&#x27;ve tried free, paid, in-app-purchase, and subscription-based (!) apps. They tend to suck quite diffusely: many do not support logging into one&#x27;s account of those that purportedly do, many return an (inappropriate) authentication error (and are so &gt;1 year old, so I suppose some change in the login API some time ago caused this state of affairs and that the apps have languished unmaintained since then). “Boreal” is particularly infuriating as it requires a subscription to log into one&#x27;s account and to read more than 75 stories per week, and once paid for doeen&#x27;t log in anyway.<p>I&#x27;ve settled on the free MiniHack as being the best one so far, and it comes extraordinarily close to meeting all my criteria (the only shortfall is lack of optimisation for iPhone X&#x27;s screen, and lack of notifictions).<p>“Hacker Buzz” is the newest and looks graphically very promising, but doesn&#x27;t support login. I haven&#x27;t heard back from the developer I tried to contact through the feedback form either.<p>What apps do you recommend? (For various reasons, I&#x27;m not really a fan of using the web-browser, so please don&#x27;t go down the “just use the webpage” route... of course one can use the webpage, but I&#x27;m looking for stand-alone app solutions.)<p>Thanks.
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azinman2
I’m very curious to know what the various reasons are against the web browser.
I’ve tried many clients over the years, and nothing has ever beaten the
browser. HN is super fast to load, I get all of the functionality, the layout
works well, it’s dense enough to allow me to quickly skim but light/structured
enough to not make it a chore, and I get all of the advantages of bookmarking,
tabs, browser syncing, etc that Safari provides.

~~~
qubex
It’s a matter of mental gymnastics and “containers”: accessing anything
through the browser requires first switching to the browser, and then getting
to a page (or tab, or whatever) inside the browser, which is two hops — it’s a
nested operation. Switching to a dedicated app is one hop, and is cognitively
more proximate as it is a flat hierarchy with no nesting.

~~~
noahdesu
I hear ya. I think it might be nice to be able to create psuedo-apps that
function as Safari/Chrome bookmarks.

~~~
qubex
At one point I did just that: I put a “web-app” bookmark on my iOS home-
screen. It worked, up to a point, but is very dissatisfying for a whole host
of reasons (mainly, it messes with the browser’s state).

~~~
noahdesu
Hmm.. it's too bad that doesn't work better, because at least for HN, I find
the webapp to be pretty decent.

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randomsearch
MiniHack. Tried a bunch of free apps then paid for it after some googling.
Supports login and comments. Has a dark interface theme.

~~~
qubex
As I wrote in the post, MiniHack is the one I have currently settled on.

My only concern is that it appears only very lightly maintained, hasn’t had an
update for the iPhone X’s screen, and has no support for notifications.

~~~
randomsearch
Your post says “free MiniHack” app. I don’t see one in the App Store.

~~~
qubex
Here it is: MiniHack - Hacker News Client by Cai GuangShao
[https://itunes.apple.com/it/app/minihack-hacker-news-
client/...](https://itunes.apple.com/it/app/minihack-hacker-news-
client/id631108846?l=en&mt=8)

~~~
randomsearch
That's not free!

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songgao
Have you tried this one?

Hacker News (YC) by Dharmesh Patel [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-
news-yc/id713733435?m...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-
yc/id713733435?mt=8)

It’s worked fairly well for me as a light user.

~~~
nolite
I've also settled on this one as the least sucky.. There are still some issues
as you can't easily see your comment history, and there's often a bug when you
click a story directly, you can't see the content..

But again, its the least sucky I've found

~~~
qubex
None that I have seen allow one to easily see and track one’s comment history.
That would seem to be a pretty desirable feature, but it is not implemented by
anybody, which is bizarre.

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jitl
I’ve similarly tried about eight apps, on both iOS and Android, and have never
found an app good enough to keep.

Instead, I use [https://hckrnews.com/](https://hckrnews.com/)

The main feature is to order front-page stories by time, rather than by score.

This lets you easily find the latest content, instead of needing to review all
20+ titles on the front page to see if anything is new.

The about page has a great feature list. It solves almost every pain point I
have with HN’s interface in a thoughtful way. Any further description would be
a poorly worded rehash.

Check it out:
[https://hckrnews.com/about.html](https://hckrnews.com/about.html)

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sharjeelsayed
My setup is like this

RSS Reader (Web/iOS/Android): Import
[http://opml.SharjeelSayed.com](http://opml.SharjeelSayed.com) , into
Inoreader.com

News Notifications (iOS/Android): Add
[http://rss.SharjeelSayed.com](http://rss.SharjeelSayed.com) into the 'Feed
URL' field in
[https://IFTTT.com/applets/456148p](https://IFTTT.com/applets/456148p)

[http://rss.SharjeelSayed.com](http://rss.SharjeelSayed.com) has the 'Must
Read' part of the OPML file
[http://opml.SharjeelSayed.com](http://opml.SharjeelSayed.com) so I get alerts
for important stuff.

theoldreader.com works well too on the mobile browser (Safari/Chrome). Import
[http://opml.SharjeelSayed.com](http://opml.SharjeelSayed.com) into it.

------
chmaynard
Safari works well for me.

~~~
qubex
“ _I 'm not really a fan of using the web-browser, so please don't go the
“just use the webpage” route..._” Why did I even bother writing that?

~~~
chmaynard
I’m an iOS developer. I once considered writing a Hacker News app. After
looking into what would be involved, I decided it would be a waste of time.
The API is inadequate and YC makes no guarantees about future expansion.

~~~
qubex
Fair enough… but still, there’s clearly a big population, and tracking changes
in login systems is nothing new, is it?

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throthro
Not a HN app, but works fine: Reeder + feedbin.me

Keeps you logged in if you want to comment/upvote. Tracks all stories that
managed to main page via RSS feed.

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nindalf
I can give a strong recommendation to Materialistic -
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.github.hidr...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.github.hidroh.materialistic&hl=en)

It has every feature you asked for and its a pleasure to use. The only place
it fell short was the lack of a downvote feature.

~~~
qubex
Uhm… am I missing something blindingly obvious or is this an app for Android,
not iOS?

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nindalf
I'm so sorry. I got mixed up. The client I use on iOS (Hacker News Zero) is
good doesn't have the features you wanted, like login.

~~~
qubex
I’ll keep it in mind just in case I ever switch to Android. ;)

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kdaker
If you just want to browse/read, I recommend "Hacker News Client"
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-
client/id9394542...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-
client/id939454231?mt=8)

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cosbas
I use reeder and am very happy with it.

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hungerstrike
I don't think it's a good idea for any app developer to make an app that lets
you login to a website that they don't own, especially that doesn't offer an
authentication API. What happens when the website changes anything? The app
breaks immediately...

The best Hacker News client for getting the headlines is
[http://hckrnews.com/](http://hckrnews.com/)

You didn't list any criteria besides "runs on iOS and lets me login". A
webbrowser is a native app which fits that criteria perfectly - so what's your
reasoning for not wanting to use it and what do you want an app to do that the
webbrowser app can't do?

~~~
qubex
I don’t want to go through a browser. That’s a fundamental desire.

~~~
hungerstrike
That's fine. I can relate to having a strong preference for something that
other people don't really get. But, I can usually explain why. (Usually!)

I'm just curious - what's the reason that it's a fundamental desire?

~~~
qubex
As I have explained elsewhere in the responses, it is a matter of ”mental
gymnastics”: using something through a web-browser entails two nested
operations: first switching to the browser and then browsing to the content
(via URL, bookmark, or tab choice) whereas switching from one app to another
is a flat hierarchy.

~~~
hungerstrike
If you put a link to the website on your home screen, it opens in a separate
app from the browser.

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hsk823
Reeder

~~~
qubex
Can you post comments as yourself through Reeder?

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holydude
I use Feedly not only for hn

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jore
I also use feedly, but you can't comment there, right? And you do not see the
source of the link, which is sometimes quite helpful

