

Show HN: Hacker News iOS client using the new official API - bonzoq
http://hnclient.weebly.com

======
smackfu
A few thoughts:

When on the comments page, I'd expect tapping the title to take me to the
article, but it doesn't.

The child comment touch target is all the way to the far right, which is at
the edge of the touch region on the new larger phones. Feels a bit awkward.
Maybe make the entire comment the touch target for that?

Not a fan of the big black back arrow. I know it goes away, but as you scroll,
it is right where you want to start reading, and feels a bit distracting.
Maybe just tone it down a bit?

There's a little bit of stuttering as you scroll, which is surprising for a
text list. I'm guessing it's a bug rather than actual performance issues.

~~~
bonzoq
Thanks for your feedback.

I thought tapping the title and going to the article in the comments page
could be counter-productive if one slightly missed the back arrow. I need to
give it a thought again.

It's a good idea to make the entire comment tappable instead of just the small
button. I haven't tested the app on a physical iPhone 6 yet.

I'm not sure about the arrow. It still takes up less space than the navigation
bar and immediately goes away.

Main and comments views are basically a table view with UITextViews displaying
attributed strings. I did my best to convert HTML to attributed string in no
time, so I'm surprised by the stuttering as you scroll. It doesn't occur on my
iPhone 5s. I need to investigate that.

~~~
smackfu
Yeah, they were just random thoughts, I'm not sure they are all good ideas.
The stuttering only seems to happen on long comment pages, when I give it a
push and let it scroll. It seems to just hiccup every 100 ms or so.

------
ibejoeb
Speaking of these things, what became of the plan to launch a revamped HN with
mobile-friendly markup?

"Our goal is to switch to a new rendering engine (still powered by Arc) in
three weeks (Oct 28)" from the API announcement at
[http://blog.ycombinator.com/hacker-news-
api](http://blog.ycombinator.com/hacker-news-api).

~~~
ssully
I think they might be getting there? I noticed that the comment's section on
mobile fits the width my mobile devices screen now and it is generally much
more readable. I recall having to doing a lot annoying zooming in just to read
comments. Before.

Granted I only access HN on mobile a few times a month, so I could just be
making all of this up.

------
rismay
Actually, I have had an iOS app using the client out for about 3 weeks. It was
meant to be a tutorial on how to use Couchbase Lite to consume APIs. However,
it's going through a complete rewrite to make it full featured. I use it to
consume Hacker News. I have a version that allows me to sort and hide stories
I've already read that is waiting for approval.

Github:
[https://github.com/wrkstrm/HelveticaNeue](https://github.com/wrkstrm/HelveticaNeue)

App Store: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/helvetica-neue-native-
open/i...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/helvetica-neue-native-
open/id931789125?mt=8)

------
0942v8653
If anyone else is looking for a better iOS client (native or not), I'm using
HackerWeb
([http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb](http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb)).
It's pretty nice, and ironically feels more native than the native apps I've
tried. Here's a bookmarklet to open the current HN page in HackerWeb:

    
    
        javascript:var%20a=/%5B0-9%5D+/.exec(location.href);var%20n=a%5Ba.length-1%5D;location.href='http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/%23/item/'+n

~~~
awkim
Seconded - it's great on tablets.

------
owly
The large font and design is nice but i prefer HakkaNews for being able to
comment and change feeds from Top to New etc. Add the swipe right sidebar with
those features and youve got a winner!

~~~
bonzoq
Once those feature become available in the API, I'll definitely add them.
Thanks!

------
eligundry
Loving it so far! Great job.

One small request, though. It'd be awesome to collapse comment threads. Any
chance of that happening?

Edit: Nevermind. You have the comments setup so you only see the top level and
have to tap to see the child comments. Don't think I've seen that before but I
dig it.

~~~
bonzoq
Thanks for you feedback! I'm glad you like the app.

I thought comments presented this way would be easier to read, because if
child comments are indented than it's basically a waste of screen-space on a
mobile device.

------
lordbusiness
I like this new client! Good work. It's refreshing to see an HN client with a
2014 era UI. I also love that it's Open Source.

Couple of items of feedback for you.

#1 Please make the top off-white colour bar go away; it's jarring on an
otherwise all-white background. The most tasteful looking iOS 7 / 8 era apps I
enjoy are the ones that make the iOS info bar blend with the rest of the
screen real estate.

#2 Once inside an article, the black back circle isn't very pretty, or easy to
hit. This needs some work since it just looks a little overlaid and
unpleasant. I don't have any meaningful suggestions, but I'd suggest this
needs some rethinking.

All in all, I love it! Thank you.

~~~
bonzoq
Hi, thanks for your feedback.

#1 Do you mean the status bar? I could easily remove it, but don't you like to
know what time it is? Removing the status bar could be an option in settings
in the next release. #2 I will give this suggestion a thought. Now you can go
back to the previous view by swiping right. So theoretically the back arrow
could be hidden too.

~~~
lordbusiness
Heh - yes - the status bar. I don't mind it being there, in fact it should be.
But on my iPhone 5 it renders in some shade of eggshell when the rest of the
interface is white. In my humble opinion, it should be the same colour as the
rest of the UI.

------
stan503
A few weeks ago I updated my Hacker News iOS client to use the new API:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-
zero/id764890985...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-
zero/id764890985?mt=8)

------
gespadas
Any Android client using the new API?

~~~
burntcookie90
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.dwak.holoha...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.dwak.holohackernews.app)

Shameless plug :D

This is using cheeaun's wrapper, which was just recently switched to the new
api.

Additionally, I'm writing my own wrapper as well, and will be migrating to it
eventually.

I didn't want to use closed source code in the application which is why I
didn't include the Firebase SDK, and which is why I need to use a wrapper
around the api.

~~~
gespadas
Installed. Nice done! :-)

------
cauterize
Any reason the iconic orange was omitted? It just feels odd to read Hacker
News without it.

~~~
bonzoq
Initially there was an orange navigation bar in this app, but I got rid of it
completely for the sake of more screen-space.

------
krmmalik
I haven't been able to comment on a HN submission from a mobile device in god
knows how long. I've tried so many apps. not having an orange look just feels
odd, but more to the point I constantly find either the apps are great for
consumption but not commenting, or the other way aroubd. This app seems to be
no exception. The news:yc app was my favourite client until commenting broke.
Haven't had a response from the developer since. I'm now using Hakka News but
"no orange" is very strange.

------
ehtd
Made my own (iphone/ipad) implementation(swift/open source) of firebase too:
[http://portablerobot.wordpress.com/2014/11/16/hackyto-
availa...](http://portablerobot.wordpress.com/2014/11/16/hackyto-available-on-
app-store/)

I did wanted to support the live update, but I rather let the user decide when
to spend their data.

Nice work!

~~~
xux
Thanks for this. Learning Swift right now, and I'm going to dissect your code
:)

------
jamesgeck0
Maybe it's better on an iPhone 6, but there's a lot more scrolling than most
other iOS news apps. It's pretty and all, but I'll take a bit of ugly to be
able to see more than three headlines at once.

~~~
bonzoq
That's a good point. I might include setting headlines' font size in the next
update. Thanks!

~~~
owly
>That's a good point. I might include setting headlines' font size in the next
update. Thanks!

------
lmedinas
Is there any plan to support iPad also ?

~~~
bonzoq
Yep, I plan to roll out an update that will include iPad support in a few
weeks. Definetely before Christmas.

------
intellegacy
I don't see a way to make comments.

Is that feature included?

~~~
intellegacy
also, how long did it take to make

i might try it as a learning project

------
tommy_
Its really nice! Any way to view SHOW or ASK posts?

~~~
bonzoq
Well, the API doesn't support viewing those posts yet.

------
mokkol
Thanks for sharing and making this open source!

~~~
bonzoq
No problem. Am hoping for at least one pull request!

------
ilzmastr
iOS 8 only! :( Wish I could try it! Screens look great!

------
cdbattags
No Swift? Wah

~~~
vbezhenar
Currently Swift is a questionable choice. It adds around 5 MB size to the
application archive, XCode support is buggy and standard library lacks many
things it should have. I built custom keyboard with Swift and I won't use it
for my next projects in the near future, until it'll become more stable. But
probably in year or two it'll become much better.

