

HN iPhone App Live (free; unofficial but very functional) - drodio
http://www.danielodio.com/drodio/index/Entries/2010/7/7_Hacker_News_iPhone_App_Live.html
Would love the HN community's feedback on what else you'd like to see in the app.<p>We're just moving our company to SF, so this is a housewarming gift of sorts, from AppMakr, the tool used to create the app.
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josh33
All I really want is a Hacker News app that allows you to vote, view/reply to
comments, and formats all content on news.ycombinator.com into a mobile-
friendly format. Is there an app that does that?

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danielodio
Yeah would love to put the voting functionality into the app. Would need PG's
involvement to do that.

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ryanhuff
Is that because you're digesting the data through RSS? Scraping would get you
the data you need to provide full functionality.

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danielodio
Yes correct re: digesting via RSS.

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fletchowns
Looks like a glorified RSS reader...I thought Apple was going to stop
accepting apps like this?

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danielodio
Fletchowns, AppMakr started with RSS because most sites spin it off, . If by
"glorified" you mean:

1) app uses location for parsing Geo data 2) app has push notifications 3) app
has a media photo gallery 4) app can store content offline, i.e., in subway

... then the answer's yes. But while AppMakr uses RSS as a data transport
mechanism, the view layer has gotten pretty sophisticated.

I'd say the app is pretty useful - but give it a go and tell me what you
think.

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fletchowns
All things that can be done in the browser, except for push notifications,
which are completely unnecessary for a site like HN.

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danielodio
Have you tried reading HN on the iPhone? The fact that HN links to each
article means you have to wait for _each_ story you want to read to load...
downloading it all for quick / offline reading is a huge plus

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Sam_Odio
Disclaimer: I'm the brother of the poster, so I'm biased.

This is actually pretty cool since you can read the stories inline (instead of
pulling up the iPhone's browser interface). That said, it would be nice to
have the option to pull up a browser in case I wanted to navigate around on
the source site.

Oh, and bro, you have to tell Isaac and Sean to stop spamming your posts with
upvotes and comments: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1118734>. They're
cramping your style.

Edit: Thanks Sean for removing your comment on this post.

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fletchowns
So it robs the content provider of any ad revenue?

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danielodio
Hmmm an interesting question. Seems that the culture around RSS isn't set like
other mediums are. For example, when you put an RSS feed on your site - a feed
that a content site owner made available - you're keeping the user off the
original content owner's site too. Interestingly, the RSS feed that I pulled
to put content into the app (<http://andrewtrusty.com/2009/06/29/readable-
feeds/> by Andrew Trusty) has 578,925 "hits" (don't know if he means
subscribers).

So I guess in a round about way I'm asking, is taking that existing (awesome)
and publicly available feed and putting it into a mobile app for consumption
on the go what bothers you, or just the fact that the feed exists in the first
place? - DROdio

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andrewljohnson
Nice, I wonder if you will squish the guy whose app I already bought for this:
<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news/id339408916?mt=8>

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ElliotH
I'm actually quite a fan of that little app - it works quite well. Possibly
overpriced (should probably be free or 59p) but, importantly, it's simple and
gets the job done.

This seems like it has a lot of features I would never need or use. Things
like needing my current location and sending out push notifications seem a
little gratuitous too, but maybe that's just me.

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ugh
€2.40 too much? Seriously? I have paid more than that for 100g of chocolate.

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ElliotH
I paid the money - so evidently I think its an acceptable amount to pay.

But we're talking about something that is competing with a free application.

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marknutter
I don't get why every website needs an iPhone app..

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danielodio
Try using this app on the go and see what you think - I've found that I read
HN 2x as often by having this app - and it's fast, i.e., I don't have to wait
for a web page to load, which makes it so I end up reading more. - DROdio

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marknutter
Considering my iPhone 3G safari is so slow I only use it in emergencies, I
will take your advice.

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danielodio
Great & please let me know if there are other HN related feeds or content
you'd like to see in the app. I can publish changes pretty quickly.

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marknutter
I'll try to remember to do that. Thanks!

