

Hacker News Reader is Free Today - clarky07
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-reader!/id532402679?ls=1&mt=8

======
ddon
What problem does this app solve? I find using browsers for websites is more
usable for me than using an app. I can have many tabs open, I can copy
anything I need, press on links and do what I have been doing on the web for
20 years. All those apps brake the web, and make it actually harder to use
it...

~~~
clarky07
I personally hate browsing HN in a browser, even on computer. I use a plugin
for chrome that does something similar to the apps where I can easily flip
back and forth between the comments and the article. Especially with the
rapidly expiring links, I find flipping back and forth to be useful.

This also uses the bigrss to get several pages on stories instead of just one.

~~~
styluss
which plugins?

~~~
clarky07
Hacker News OnePage - [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-
onepag...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-
onepage/plldnnbdlbgbiknjebohmlggcbicghlj)

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smackfu
Has pg ever said why he doesn't just fix the stylesheet so it's usable on an
iPhone? If you're not familiar, it looks like this:
<http://i.imgur.com/Mzrk6l.png>

The site design is responsive to the width changing, but Safari just picks far
too wide a width for a phone.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Well, all you need is a meta viewport tag, like so:

    
    
      <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1">
    

With that, viewport width will match CSS pixel width of the screen.

~~~
pooriaazimi
All you need is a couple fields in your profile that lets you use a custom CSS
and a custom JavaScript file... You know, like the current `topcolor:` field.

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csense
I always thought that phones powerful enough to have apps are also powerful
enough to have browsers.

How is this app better than just using a browser?

~~~
cowsaysoink
The iphone doesn't zoom like the android browser and makes hacker news more
difficult to use in portrait mode. (Tiny text and tiny buttons)

~~~
leephillips
The tiny text problem, at least, can be solved with a bookmarklet for
increasing the font size. In fact, having such a thing around is almost
essential when using mobile Safari, at least if you're over a certain age.

~~~
k3n
You don't find it a problem (read: annoying) that you need to run a
bookmarklet on every single page load?

~~~
leephillips
Yes, yes I do. It would be far better if mobile Safari had a configuration for
a minimum font size.

~~~
leephillips
And even better if people stopped writing stylesheets that created unreadable
pages on small screens. It's not that hard to write CSS that makes your site
readable on any size screen. A page with no CSS works fine. If your text gets
too small on a phone, you've added CSS that breaks it.

------
k3n
Anyone have any suggestions for an Android HN app?

I have this one currently:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.airlocksof...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.airlocksoftware.hackernews&hl=en)

Just curious what else you guys might be using.

~~~
css771
This one -
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rickylaish...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rickylaishram.hackernews)
and this one -
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.manuelmaly...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.manuelmaly.hn)
are the best ones currently imo.

------
purephase
I like: ihackernews.com

I'll check out the app though.

~~~
skiplecariboo
same here, i tried many apps and web apps a few months ago and i ended up
saving ihackernews.com on the springboard. It is perfect (except that you
can't see the older posts).

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hierro
Shameless plug ahead. I checked all the HN clients for iOS (I think) and I
didn't like any of them. Their designs are usually rough and they don't add
much functionality to the site. That's why I started writing a better HN app
and I'm documenting the process. If you're interested about it, you can see my
last post about the app here <http://www.rainycape.com/post/300/building-
hackerful-day-2/> (currently writing post about day 3).

------
Someone
I don't like it. Pages seem to load slower than in Safari, it seems to think
that people will read articles before the HN comments (target area is way
larger), I find the text layout worse (it wouldn't change my opinion, but
can't the "Show WebView of comments" toggle stick?) and there is no "Reader"
functionality on web pages.

------
clarky07
Dev here, just getting it out there hoping to get some feedback and reviews.
Note, there is a known bug in the iPhone version that cuts the last line off
on a few comments, but it will be fixed soon (and you can also just go to the
web version instead of the custom comments).

~~~
harrigan
It's a little unfortunate that there are two apps named "Hacker News Reader"
and "Hacker News Reader!". Nice app though.

~~~
clarky07
yeah, i had an "!" in the title at one point and it got modded out. Guess they
didn't look into it enough to realize that's the name of the app (and as you
noted is important)

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weef
I use the HackerNode iPhone app and find it to be a fantastic way to read HN
from my phone. Not free though but I would definitely recommend it.

~~~
clarky07
I liked HackerNode but the lack of the ability to comment (and lack of
threaded comments) made me make this. Have they added commenting yet?

~~~
weef
No commenting but I'm a read-only lurker on my phone so that hasn't bothered
me. I'll give your app a try.

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MrSaints
Flipboard is pretty good for accessing Hacker News. To be totally honest, this
app doesn't seem totally useful.

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brequinn
how much did it normally cost?

~~~
clarky07
it started at 1.99 and has fluctuated between .99 and 1.99

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hnriot
when searching for "hacker news" on the app store this app is 16 or 19. Very
difficult to find even when you use the full name. Searching for 30 south
doesn't help either. Apple's app store search is miserably bad.

~~~
clarky07
Agreed. In this case there just aren't that many exciting things to call a hn
reader app, but in general the search is really difficult since the changes
this summer. They lowered the importance of the name a lot, so even finding an
exact match is tough.

