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Show HN: Dead simple Hacker News reader for iOS

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Re: Show HN: Dead simple Hacker News reader for iOS

#51

Post by avalaunch »

minihack wrote: post #43

Shameless plug XD My app MiniHack dose all. Nested comments, collapsible comment thread, login to upvote, reply to comment, one tap to open story or comments. Share to Pocket, Instapaper, Pinboard, Evernote, etc. Search hacker news, view the best of pages, ask, new, jobs. Instapaper and Readability mobilizer support, and more. And I am working on the new iOS 7 update right now, including UI redesign, a new slick dark…

I love MiniHack. I tried at least half a dozen HN apps before finding it. It's by far my favorite. The collapsible threads feature can come in really handy when faced with a really long thread of comments that you're not interested in.

Re: Show HN: Dead simple Hacker News reader for iOS

#52

Post by edwellbrook »

crb wrote: post #49

mertdumenci: what's the typeface, and were you influenced in choosing it by anything (Vesper?)

Hey, I'm the designer of Hack Later. The font we went with is Avenir, a font natively available on iOS. Other apps we intend to release under the BrushedType name will also use this font. We're both quite fond of it, and it's nice to stray from Helvetica once in a while.

Re: Show HN: Dead simple Hacker News reader for iOS

#53

Post by alariccole »

nayefc wrote: post #36
alariccole wrote: post #32

A shameless plug, but my app is brand new, free, and shows comments legibly. But the #1 feature: background refresh. It uses new APIs in iOS 7 to preload the front page before you open it. Pivit - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pivit/id705715915

The app will not preload every time new items come in. This is a common misconception about iOS 7. iOS 7 schedules these apps to run very infrequently to save battery. Some times it will take many hours to do a background refresh.

I've got a few apps built using this API, so I can chime in. It is definitely based on usage patterns--the more you use a particular app, the more often it will refresh. It's also certainly based on battery life at the time, but also the requirements of the app.

With Pivit, since it's such a compact fetch, it'll happen more frequently than if you were, for instance, downloading photos. I check HN a lot, so for me, the app is always up to date. It does take a bit of learning time for the OS to know your patterns, but it is well worth it--it's really a great new API.

Re: Show HN: Dead simple Hacker News reader for iOS

#54

Post by alariccole »

mertdumenci wrote: post #38
nayefc wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The app will not preload every time new items come in. This is a common misconception about iOS 7. iOS 7 schedules these apps to run very infrequently to save battery. Some times it will take many hours to do a background refresh.

Or it may not even refresh at all. From the docs, it seems like it's a pretty intelligent API that optimises itself with usage.

It seems to be smartly batched with other network fetches. I did some tests using a local notification to let me know when it occurred, and it happened most often when sending an app into the background or finishing up another network task.

Re: Show HN: Dead simple Hacker News reader for iOS

#55

Post by alariccole »

edwellbrook wrote: post #52
crb wrote: post #49

mertdumenci: what's the typeface, and were you influenced in choosing it by anything (Vesper?)

Hey, I'm the designer of Hack Later. The font we went with is Avenir, a font natively available on iOS. Other apps we intend to release under the BrushedType name will also use this font. We're both quite fond of it, and it's nice to stray from Helvetica once in a while.

Avenir is nice. I need to look more into how to use fonts other than Helvetica with Text Kit automatic font resizing. For Pivit that was one of the must-have features--the ability for those who like larger/smaller fonts to be able to change them system-wide. I just recently learned that this is also available with custom fonts.

Re: Show HN: Dead simple Hacker News reader for iOS

#56

Post by alariccole »

avalaunch wrote: post #51
minihack wrote: post #43

Shameless plug XD My app MiniHack dose all. Nested comments, collapsible comment thread, login to upvote, reply to comment, one tap to open story or comments. Share to Pocket, Instapaper, Pinboard, Evernote, etc. Search hacker news, view the best of pages, ask, new, jobs. Instapaper and Readability mobilizer support, and more. And I am working on the new iOS 7 update right now, including UI redesign, a new slick dark…

I love MiniHack. I tried at least half a dozen HN apps before finding it. It's by far my favorite. The collapsible threads feature can come in really handy when faced with a really long thread of comments that you're not interested in.

This was one of my favorites. Try out my comments system as well--I collapse everything by default, because I found it's easier to tap to expand than it is to scroll forever. It seems odd, but it works really well for me. appsto.re/i6xC4GD

Re: Show HN: Dead simple Hacker News reader for iOS

#57

Post by alariccole »

mertdumenci wrote: post #20
publicfig wrote: post #3

I can't really figure out the functionality of this, so I'm not going to buy it to try it out. If you can't comment on it, then it's worth checking out http://hn.premii.com/ . It's a web, based app, but if you save it to your home screen it removes the Safari chrome and looks and works as a standalone app. You can look at its source here: https://github.com/premii/hn If you can comment on this, it should be interesti…

Heyo, developer of the app here. http://hn.premii.com is absolutely mind blowing — it's lightweight, web based and super fast. The functionality of Hack Later is its speed and deep read later (currently Pocket only) integration. Comments are in the works, too! Also, I'm probably biased but I think it's pretty good looking :)

It does look nicer than most. For better or worse, though, I find the discussions to be more informative than most articles ;)

Re: Show HN: Dead simple Hacker News reader for iOS

#58

Post by dferlemann »

mertdumenci wrote: post #31

Hey Hacker News, developer of the app here. Thanks for the awesome response! The most requested feature is comments by far, totally understand it. Comments are a planned feature, and we intend to implement them as soon as we can. For now though the app is focused deeply on saving posts and links, so Hack Later still might be worth checking out, if you haven't already. Also, promo codes are fun. W4LEYM7ENYLN AL43JW7JW…

Thanks! Pocket integration is definite enough for me to convert. I will wait for the update on comment feature.

Re: Show HN: Dead simple Hacker News reader for iOS

#59

Post by ashishgandhi »

alariccole wrote: post #28
smackfu wrote: post #8

I'm still trying to figure out which Hacker News reader is a labor-of-love for the developer, as opposed to a coding exercise to see if they can make a few bucks which is abandoned quickly when the answer is "no".

Mine is free, and freshly rebuilt for iOS using Text Kit and background refresh. It's free and no in-apps: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pivit/id705715915

I like this one. I had never heard of you so I built Simple Hacker News (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/simple-hacker-news-simple/id...) last year.

The big feature I want is I want a way to see what I've already read. I think this is the first app (other than mine) that I know does this.

Haven't played around long but I like you can collapse and expand comments. Is there a way to default them all to be expanded?

EDIT: You need a way to refresh comments.

@Replies: I'm glad you guys like it. Looks like I'll renew my Developer Program membership then. It's due in less than a week.

Re: Show HN: Dead simple Hacker News reader for iOS

#60

Post by mokkol »

minihack wrote: post #43

Shameless plug XD My app MiniHack dose all. Nested comments, collapsible comment thread, login to upvote, reply to comment, one tap to open story or comments. Share to Pocket, Instapaper, Pinboard, Evernote, etc. Search hacker news, view the best of pages, ask, new, jobs. Instapaper and Readability mobilizer support, and more. And I am working on the new iOS 7 update right now, including UI redesign, a new slick dark…

I still have iOS 5.1 Will it work on my phone? For some reason I can't check before buying....
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