
Show HN: Telescope – News and RSS Reader - meteor333
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/telescope-news-rss-reader/id1353282977
======
miles
As a greybeard still running Blosxom, I love seeing the resurgence on HN
lately around RSS feeds.

My setup:

1\. [https://feedhq.org/](https://feedhq.org/) for syncing between mobile and
desktop or reading via web browser. $12/year or grab the source and host it
yourself. Easily import/export OPML, so you're in charge of your
subscriptions.

2\. [http://reederapp.com/](http://reederapp.com/) for reading on iOS and
macOS

3\. Inspired by Slow Feeds (recently renamed as Web Subscriber
[http://zoziapps.ch/web-subscriber-5-0/](http://zoziapps.ch/web-
subscriber-5-0/) ), I added a new "Slow" folder with all of the high-quality,
low-frequency feeds. Made my daily reading _far_ more pleasant.

~~~
jasonkostempski
I love seeing the resurgence too. I wish the HN site would give some more love
to their RSS options. /rss is OK but I'd like to see a separate feed for
everything in /lists and a feed that will allow me to monitor responses to
comments, by user or by specific comment, like what /threads?id= shows, so I
don't have to constantly rescan that to see if anyone has replied.

~~~
johnchristopher
Not RSS but there's an email notification service for HN that is very nice
[http://hnreplies.com](http://hnreplies.com)

~~~
jasonkostempski
Seems nice but, for me, a major benefit of RSS is not having to give out
personal information or creating a new account. I've been activley deleting
accounts anywhere I find RSS can replace it, like YouTube.

------
jeena
Let me pitch you a different way of doing it. I use TinyTinyRSS [https://tt-
rss.org/](https://tt-rss.org/) as a backend to synchronize what I've already
read but I don't like the UI so I wrote a desktop app as a front end:
[https://github.com/jeena/feedthemonkey](https://github.com/jeena/feedthemonkey)

I sometimes read my feeds on the phone too, there I just use one of the many
apps compatible with TTRSS.

~~~
bpye
Never tried tt-rss but have tried Freshness and ended up settling on Miniflux
as my preferred reader.

Miniflux: \+ Single binary, no Cron jobs \+ Easy to run in a container -
nothing is stored to a file - everything in the DB \+ Supports Let's Encrypt
out of the box \+ Simple fast UI \+ Fever API support, good readers exist for
iOS, less Android (working on that though) \- No web push notifications \- No
PubSubHubbub support (though I couldn't make that work with FreshRSS either)
\- No maintained Android clients (if in wrong please tell me!) \- Only
supports PostgreSQL

FreshRSS: \+ Richer feature set \+ Push notifications \+ PubSubHubbub \+
Android apps, though they aren't perfect \- More moving parts, needs Cron, PHP
\- Harder to run in a container \- Web UI is worse on mobile

[1] - [https://freshrss.org](https://freshrss.org)

[2] - [https://miniflux.net](https://miniflux.net)

------
godinaa
Why a max char count for password?? The max of 12 is awfully small.

Edit: The app is quiting when I try to scroll through Ars Technica in List
view.

~~~
meteor333
Thanks for pointing it out. Let me check and increase the limit.

Edit: Its fixed now. Increased to 128

~~~
drusepth
Why is there a limit at all? When you hash the password, it should be a fixed
size no matter the password length. Make sure you're not just storing the
password on its own.

~~~
infogulch
I recently discovered that some password hashes take time proportional to the
length of the password _times_ the number of rounds. E.g. if bcrypt work
factor is set to 16 and you have a 1M byte password then the time is
proportional to `1000000 * 2^16`

Why it doesn't first hash the password so it's `1000000 + len(hash) * 2^16` is
beyond me, and something a crypto expert will have to answer.

In practice this means that setting an arbitrarily high limit on password size
would open you up to a DOS attack via (effectively) quadratic time password
hashing.

------
tallanvor
Your ToS starts off by stating "This agreement is a legal contract between you
and us.", but there's no definition of who "us" is, there's no page that I can
find identifying who you are or what your registered address is in case of a
dispute.

Edit: I'm looking at your web page (I don't have any Apple products, so I
can't see what your app has).

~~~
meteor333
Both have the same TOS. We are in process of forming an entity. It will be
updated soon.

------
johnmc408
One more vote for being able to use your app w/o signing up. My current RSS
reader doesn't require a signup...

~~~
meteor333
Web version doesn't require signup -
[https://telescope.surf](https://telescope.surf). Considering opening up iOS
app as well.

~~~
webwanderings
Your website is pretty good as is; works well on the phone. Not sure why would
I install an app. I particularly like the fact that some of the pay walled
stories open up fine within your site (not sure for how long you'd be able to
do this - minus the WSJ). The only missing piece sometimes, is the name of the
author, if it is an opinion piece.

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aphextron
I’m sure it’s wonderful, but I’m not giving my email address to an RSS reader.
Thats kind of the whole point.

~~~
djrogers
> Thats kind of the whole point.

What? How is that 'the whole point' of an RSS reader?

~~~
0xCMP
In the spirit of not being tracked by someone like Facebook, he means that he
doesn't want to be identified by an email and therefore have a possible
profile built on him based on what he subscribes, reads, saves, etc.

~~~
trevor-e
That's definitely fair, but like the OP is saying, how is that the entire
point of using RSS? RSS itself stands for Really Simple Syndication, there's
nothing saying that clients can't provide extra convenience and features
behind a login/profile. I don't think people use RSS feeds to have more
privacy.

------
oblib
I bookmarked Telescope.surf when it was first announced here.

I've grown to like it a lot. In fact, just this morning I bookmarked on my
iPhone too. I like the idea of a "app", but the web site works fine and I
don't put many apps on my phone but I'll just keep using it as is in Safari.

It's especially nice since Apple mucked up their "News" app in their last
upgrade and I've not used it near as much since.

~~~
meteor333
Thanks for using the app! Let me know how I can improve it.

------
mediocrejoker
Any details on how it compares to eg. Reeder?

~~~
meteor333
The focus is more on a central home feed which shows posts based community
votes, very similar to reddit or HN

------
leotravis10
Although this is interesting and looks good, I don't think its going to be
better than what I have now in Feedbin.

------
greentuna
Here’s my take on a minimalist RSS reader:
[https://teamdashboards.com](https://teamdashboards.com)

This is a work in progress. Customization doesn’t work yet. I’d like to get
feedback. If many people like this interface I’ll continue developing it.

------
jboles
Sweet! Tired of the Apple news app shoving crap down my throat that I don't
want to see.

~~~
redindian75
You can tailor AppleNews to just follow topics or sources u want....

------
github-cat
You can follow [http://www.pxlet.com](http://www.pxlet.com) if you don't want
to get lost in all the different sources and it comes with bunch of other
features. I check this one everyday now.

------
Alterlife
The initial checkboxes (where you select news sources) are really slow.
There's a half second lag for me between touching the screen and seeing the
checkbox get checked in the UI.

Are you rendering the checkbox as checked only after a server trip returns?

~~~
meteor333
Correct. Sorry about that. I'll fix that to have instant feedback and uncheck
only if server throws an error.

------
kyoshiro
I'm using rss2email with multiple categories on a dedicated IMAP account +
sieve to organize into IMAP folders (using + email separator) and discard /
filter topics I don't care about.

------
ASalazarMX
Could you open it to more countries? Seems nice, but it's not in Mexico's App
Store.

I'm using FeeddlerRSS out of the limited options of good RSS readers in my
country, but I'd like to try others.

~~~
meteor333
It is available in all countries actually. May be your language settings is
limiting the app? It’s only in English for now. Or App Store takes time to
index the app in all countries. Please check back in that case. Sorry for
trouble.

~~~
ASalazarMX
I apologize, it is there. I assumed it wasn't because the search "Telescope"
showed some apps ending with "scope", then some astronomy apps and after that
a bunch of non-related games. Thanks.

------
gunnr15
I like it. Have you thought about adding any simple Social features yet?

~~~
meteor333
Can you elaborate on that? Currently the social feature I have is that you can
upvote the posts and your feed is compiled based on the upvotes it received
across the Telescope community.

~~~
gunnr15
I would be cautious about adding any features that would lead to trolling, but
I think it would be valuable to be able to “follow” my friends and see what
article they have read and Think are “valuable”. The only “commenting” I would
enable would be private DMs, and Even then I would encourage that to be via
email or SMS.

~~~
meteor333
Good point. Im thinking about the best way to implement that.

~~~
gunnr15
Nice. If you need helping thinking of how to monetize this eventually, feel
free to reach out.

------
princekolt
Needs an account? Pauses music on startup? WTF is going on? License
agreements? What the heck is this app up to? I immediately uninstalled it,
sorry.

------
usuallymatt
I've been using telescope.surf on and off since it first launched. I really
love it and it renders rather well on Firefox for Android.

~~~
meteor333
Thank you for being the regular user! Let me know how i can improve it.

------
samgee
I started using it a few weeks ago, and finding it really useful. It has made
to the front page of my iPhone! Good work.

~~~
meteor333
Awesome! Thank you! Let me know how I can improve it.

------
JustSomeNobody
Requires iOS 11 or higher.

I'll try it some other time. I'm just not ready to give up 10.3.3 on my 6S
yet.

~~~
leotravis10
I would have stayed on iOS 10 on my 6s if it weren't for the KRACK Wi-Fi
vulnerability.

------
skanga
A new poll puts Beto O’Rourke just 3 points behind Ted Cruz in Texas

This was in the sports section

~~~
meteor333
Sorry categorization is not perfect yet. Still working on it.

------
SnowingXIV
Is there a way to subscribe to certain keywords?

~~~
meteor333
Coming up soon. Im working a way to subscribe to topics and keywords

~~~
SnowingXIV
Awesome! Look forward to the release, that would be super useful.

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ajoy
News based on popularity is inherently biased. A quick look through the web
feed shows that most, if not all news are from left-leaning publications.

------
douglaswlance
How is this better than Feedly?

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MaysonL
Enable landscape, please!

~~~
meteor333
I disabled it because it looked awkward reading a feed in small height window.
I'll test again and reconsider it.

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arbitrage
Is there an android version?

~~~
meteor333
Sorry not yet. Hopefully ill be able to get to it soon. Please check out web
version meantime - [https://telescope.surf](https://telescope.surf)

------
ccifuentes
This is a free app and looks pretty cool, but may I ask how do you make
profit?

~~~
meteor333
Im planning to add premium subscription feature soon.

