

Hacker News Reader for iPad - gmaster1440
http://markfayngersh.com/post/554409071/hacker-news-reader

======
Zev
HN for the iPad is a great idea. Its certainly one that has crossed my mind
(only to be put aside due to the lack of time - maybe in a few weeks, after
the semester ends...). This app leaves a bit to be desired, however. At least,
judging by a quick look at the screenshots.. to name a few things that jumped
out at me:

\- Is that _Marker Felt_ for the Y in the icon?!

\- The use of modal views bothers me; it doesn't completely hide the splitview
column, but, you can't select anything in it anymore as a result.

\- The large emphasis on Instapaper makes it feel like the app is a glorified
RSS reader meant to funnel you away from the app itself and consume the
content elsewhere.

\- When you _do_ view a story in-app, its just a UIWebView that opens the HN
page; nothing different than using Safari.

\- Using a single line on the UILabel that has to be scrolled (instead of
sizing it to fit, or just having multiple lines) seems like a hassle to find
out the title of the story.

\- Why does the full URL of the story matter? Regular HN does fine without it.

As an aside: Why aren't any of the HN iPhone/iPad/* platform apps open source?
Seems like a no brainer to let anyone else submit patches. And from first hand
experience, open source in the App Store _does_ sell.

~~~
gmaster1440
-That is actually American Typewriter -Fair enough -Perhaps, though it is one of the app's more productive functionality -What would you suggest it do? -Doesn't seem like too much of a hassle. Some titles are really long and scaling the size would create very small fonts. -Does it hurt?

Fair enough, removed pricing and will post source code up on github. You made
a substantial argument Zev. I was just hoping to make a bit as a fund-raiser
for this event in school, but perhaps I'll leave that to some future game :)

~~~
Zev
_What would you suggest it do?_

Reformat the text to fit the iPad's screen completely.

 _Doesn't seem like too much of a hassle. Some titles are really long and
scaling the size would create very small fonts._

Its not _much_ of a hassle. But, its _still_ a hassle. And an unnecessary one.
UILabel has a numberOfLines property. Please use it; the iPad has a nice, big
screen.

 _Does it hurt?_

Does it help? Many of the best iPhone and iPad UI's are about _removing_
extraneous content. Just because you _can_ have something on screen doesn't
mean that it _needs_ to be on there.

 _Fair enough, removed pricing and will post source code up on github._

No, no, no! Open source doesn't mean it has to be free! You can be open source
and still charge for the application. I work on Mobile Colloquy; our source is
available under a BSD license, yet on the App Store for $2.

FWIW, I bought a copy of the app. And I'll be taking a look at the source and
have a few (probably small as I'm slightly busy with finals) patches in a fork
at some point this weekend, at latest! :)

~~~
gmaster1440
I'll keep it free for now, until several patches later and the app becomes
more or less worth the money. I appreciate your active participation :)

~~~
CraigPJ
Can we get a link to the GitHub source. I'd love to contribute to this app and
make some useful improvements.

------
CraigPJ
I for one welcome a dedicated app for the iPad espe ially considering the
memory limitations with mobile safari on the iPad restricting the number of
open tabs.

The sidebar back button is a nice touch. One suggestion I would make though is
to do something else with the page curl when clicking the "view" button. It's
a nice effect but having the page curl remain visible makes it seem like you
can just click the exposed page curl to go back and bring the native app back
into view. Sine this doesn't actually do anything it's a bit awkward to keep
hitting it instead of remembering to hit the sidebar back button.

~~~
megablast
Wow, this looks ugly. It just goes to show it is a lot harder to design for
the ipad, with its much larger screen than for the iPhone.

For example, it seems silly to have the headlines (the most important info),
crammed into the small bar on the left, with the huge space on the right used
for displaying one headline and a menu. This is a waste of space.

~~~
gmaster1440
You bring up a good point megablast, designing for the iPad does bring new
challenges of its own. Though I agree with your design criticism, the iPad
Human Interface Guideline paper published by Apple is demanded to be followed
upon submission of an App to the AppStore. The larger window on the right, the
Detail View, is meant to handle a single unit of content at a time, in this
case an HN article. This "Side View" perspective may seem awkward considering
a large screen, but keep in mind that just because there is more space, not
all of it should necessarily be used up :) You don't want to cramp up too much
data or display too little. Maintaining a good balance between the two will
come with time and experience.

------
kqueue
I don't get it. I go to HN using the web browser, and it is bookmarked. What's
wrong with that? Easy and simple.

~~~
gmaster1440
Nothing. See response to nanijoe's comment.

------
CraigPJ
Several MUST have updates for the next version.

First, stop sorting the articles list by alphabetical order of title. this
sort makes absolutely no sense and makes in next to impossible to find new
articles.

Second, have some way of showing which articles have already been read. in
iPhone apps vie written in the past I've typically changed the font style in
the sidebar article listing. for example, once an article has been "read"
change the font color in the sidebar to a "grayed out" style vs the regular
black font color.

With the way the current app sorts by alphabetical order plus no way of
visually knowing which articles have already been read, it's nearly impossible
to use the app well to keep up on new submissions on Hacker News

------
nanijoe
what's wrong with reading HN in a web browser?

~~~
jws
The HN user interface leaves a bit to be desired on mobile devices. Ever
notice to "sorry I downvoted you" comments? That is people with touch screens.

Another example, to reply to you I had to find your comment in the
mysteriously small text, double tap zoom, pinch zoom, reposition, and then I
could finally hit the microscopic "reply" link.

It is a persistent itch that the site itself does not address. Some people do
things with style sheets or HTML rewriters, some do it with an app. I'd do
width sensitive CSS with the media type selectors if it were my site.

~~~
icefox
And the iPad isn't really a mobile device. It has a very large screen so large
that it is the same resolution as one of my laptops.

~~~
jws
On my iPad my finger is many times the size of the voting arrows. Your
pointing device on your netbook is pixel accurate with pre-click position
feedback.

But beyond the clicking, I think the reason I like the native HN app on my
phone is because it makes better use of the pixels. On the web page there are
great swathes of pixels that are not contributing. I'm not as sensitive on the
ipad, but paid my $3 because the author promised an iPad upgrade, and HN on a
small screen could be $3 better.

------
tumult
Is this more than just a wrapper around WebKit that can also display the
article headlines to the left? Or is there more to it than the screenshots
show?

~~~
gmaster1440
The cells on the left represent actual entries in a locally stored db using
CoreData, meaning that they will always be there until you explicitly delete
them. Each cell represents an Article object that has a title, url, author,
and comment link. So, after the article are long gone off the homepage (or
even off of the hn database), they will remain in your iPad with substantial
information. There is also an Instapaper integrator button that will instantly
send any article to your Instapaper account for offline viewing on a variety
of devices, include the iPad. Hope that cleared any concerns.

~~~
icefox
Sounds like rss to me.

------
pavs
An app for every single websites out there is an awesome idea. At this rate
App store will have millions of apps (there are ~100 million domains).

------
marknutter
I honestly think most of the apps in the app store would have been better off
as highly optimized web apps. When you look at the quality of gmail.com on the
iPad, for instance, it makes you wonder why anyone bothers with apps. Not to
mention, there is no approval process for websites. Someone just needs to make
an iPad optimized version of HN

------
jaxn
I would love a good HN app for my iPad.

This one is nit very good though (I am using it right now).

It doesn't feel very well thought out. Instead of having articles always stay
in the list I would rather them disappear after I read them unless I mark it
as a favorite or comment on it.

Also, what is this weird back button?

~~~
Zev
_Also, what is this weird back button?_

Likely an attempt at copying Instapaper's pagination; see "Pagination tap
zones" on <http://blog.instapaper.com/post/545408126>

