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Show HN: My iPad Hacker News Client, Hacker News Paper

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Re: Show HN: My iPad Hacker News Client, Hacker News Paper

#31

Post by Zirro »

iamgilesbowkett wrote: post #23
mikeash wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A newspaperish grid layout hardly seems like something that's unique enough to go around accusing someone of ripping it off from you. Or did you rip off the New York Times et al?

Newspaper grid layout, downloads the text of the stories, he even used a very similar font in his header graphic to the font in my header graphic -- and the font in my header graphic was a whimsical indulgence because it doesn't really look like a newspaper header font at all. The New York Times and many, many other papers use heavy gothic fonts for their names, and I think that if he got the design from there, he wo…

Here's the deal: Create something better than he does, and people use your version. If he creates something better than you do, people use his version. All copying allowed. How about that?

Re: Show HN: My iPad Hacker News Client, Hacker News Paper

#33

Post by mikeash »

iamgilesbowkett wrote: post #23
mikeash wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A newspaperish grid layout hardly seems like something that's unique enough to go around accusing someone of ripping it off from you. Or did you rip off the New York Times et al?

Newspaper grid layout, downloads the text of the stories, he even used a very similar font in his header graphic to the font in my header graphic -- and the font in my header graphic was a whimsical indulgence because it doesn't really look like a newspaper header font at all. The New York Times and many, many other papers use heavy gothic fonts for their names, and I think that if he got the design from there, he wo…

So your rather harsh accusation of ripoff boils down to:

* Use of a certain layout style which is literally centuries old.

* Prefetching content, an extremely common practice in computing.

* A similar font.

I think you need to seriously reexamine the originality of your work.

Re: Show HN: My iPad Hacker News Client, Hacker News Paper

#34

Post by mikeash »

ch0wda wrote: post #28
mikeash wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, how dare two different people both have the same idea of applying a newspaper theme to a web site.

"Applying a newspaper theme" implies less than the outright copying of a name, style, and functionality.

While "outright copying" implies far more than what is actually present.

Re: Show HN: My iPad Hacker News Client, Hacker News Paper

#35

Post by sammcd »

timeuser wrote: post #9
sammcd wrote: post #2

Thanks a lot for checking out my app. Here are a few promo codes for anyone interested. EFERTFJWWR7W 36XTN3E9MNYN LAKJ99K6RFNY X4ERRNY46NTE 3HLAMPWWE3X6

Codes are all used.

Thanks for letting me know, here are a few more:

LT3A7P3NJEX3

K47EP4FFK7PY

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HJR9N3AKN6XA

JKLPNAF7L3YN

Re: Show HN: My iPad Hacker News Client, Hacker News Paper

#36

Post by bluekeybox »

Thanks, just downloaded! My 2 cents:

0. Nice minimalism.

1. The main body typeface is needlessly hard to read (words have weird kerning with some letters sticking together a lot). I strongly think that the body font should be as readable as possible, simply since it is going to be read a lot! Pick the most readable font out there (or maybe the second most readable).

2. The "Return" button is hard to tap when holding the iPad in both hands. iBooks solves this problem by having the entire left edge tappable; not sure what would work best in this app.

3. Are you familiar with the Flipboard for iPad? (you probably are). I think it is beyond awesome. All magazine/web mobile apps should learn from that app.

4. That every article pops out from the bottom edge of the screen (UIModalTransitionStyleCoverVertical ?) gets annoying after a while. The animation where the whole screen whizzes by from the bottom up every time you tap is more tolerable on a smaller screen like the iPhone. I would rather prefer an animation with a "zoom" effect with the article expanding from its location in the grid to the entire screen; or maybe something else you can think of.

5. It is annoying that comments have to be shown in a browser window which takes a while to load.

Re: Show HN: My iPad Hacker News Client, Hacker News Paper

#37

Post by sammcd »

bluekeybox wrote: post #36

Thanks, just downloaded! My 2 cents: 0. Nice minimalism. 1. The main body typeface is needlessly hard to read (words have weird kerning with some letters sticking together a lot). I strongly think that the body font should be as readable as possible, simply since it is going to be read a lot! Pick the most readable font out there (or maybe the second most readable). 2. The "Return" button is hard to tap when holding…

This list is one of the first list that seems to really coincide with the things that bother me about the app.

I do like the idea of making the left side tappable, and I really do want to change my animation and hope to get time to fix that soon.

Just so you know when viewing a story you can tap the headline to go back. This feature was mostly added for myself, I hope to get a designer to design me something that communicates returning to the front page better than my current methods.

I can tell you've done some iOS work cause you can see some of the shortcuts I took to ship this on time. I hope to fix these soon :)

Re: Show HN: My iPad Hacker News Client, Hacker News Paper

#38

Post by vtail »

midnightsun wrote: post #29

If you prefer a free (and high-quality) app, check out this one: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-reader-technology...

We seem to be having different metrics for 'high-quality'. The first screenshot of the iPad version in the App Store is a list of 24 elements in a small font. I think the developer is missing the point.
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