How I built a Hacker News mobile web app, Part 2

#1

Post by cheeaun » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 2:19 PM UTC

How I built a Hacker News mobile web app, Part 2
cheeaun.com

Re: How I built a Hacker News mobile web app, Part 2

#2

Post by e1ven » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 2:52 PM UTC

Just to remind you of a comment from PG when you posted part one of this nearly a month ago-

s/the/a

You wrote A Hacker News mobile app. There are quite a few others.

While it looks nice and all, There is nothing any more or less official for this mobile web app versus any of the others that are already out there.

Re: How I built a Hacker News mobile web app, Part 2

#3

Post by phatbyte » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 2:59 PM UTC

First of all, it looks nice, so congrats, I'm sure it consumed many working hours.

But why didn't you go native ? Your controls are pretty much the OSX ones, why did you concentrate so much in the iOS CSS look-a-like interface ?

Also, you could go hybrid, mixing native controls with a webkit view for the data.

Nevertheless, good work.

Re: How I built a Hacker News mobile web app, Part 2

#4

Post by shutton » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 3:03 PM UTC

Thanks again for another great post.

I agree entirely about HNmobile being a non-standalone app. I've being working on something similar and after considering deploying it as a standalone webapp or even wrapping it with PhoneGap and submitting it to the app store I've gone with a non-standalone web app. Basically if a substantial part of your 'app' is opening links in mobile safari then keeping the app in a traditional browser environment (with back button etc) gives the best user experience.

Re: How I built a Hacker News mobile web app, Part 2

#5

Post by xutopia » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 3:05 PM UTC

This is seriously one of the best mobile HN apps I've seen. What impressed me about the article is all the polish for simple UI components like the navbar.

Re: How I built a Hacker News mobile web app, Part 2

#6

Post by marknutter » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 3:06 PM UTC

e1ven wrote: post #2

Just to remind you of a comment from PG when you posted part one of this nearly a month ago- s/the/a You wrote A Hacker News mobile app. There are quite a few others. While it looks nice and all, There is nothing any more or less official for this mobile web app versus any of the others that are already out there.

I very seriously doubt the OP is trying to pass this off as the "official" Hacker News app. I hate geeky pedantism, but the "the" in this situation may be in reference to this being the only web based hacker news app he knows of.

Re: How I built a Hacker News mobile web app, Part 2

#7

Post by marknutter » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 3:08 PM UTC

phatbyte wrote: post #3

First of all, it looks nice, so congrats, I'm sure it consumed many working hours. But why didn't you go native ? Your controls are pretty much the OSX ones, why did you concentrate so much in the iOS CSS look-a-like interface ? Also, you could go hybrid, mixing native controls with a webkit view for the data. Nevertheless, good work.

I believe the entire point of the effort was to see how close to native he could get a web app version of HN. Half the value of this is the deep dives he gives us in his blog post about just how far one can push HTML/CSS these days.

Re: How I built a Hacker News mobile web app, Part 2

#8

Post by marknutter » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 3:09 PM UTC

My hope is that Hacker News adopts this as its official mobile app. I'm getting sick of the tiny font on my iPhone.

Re: How I built a Hacker News mobile web app, Part 2

#9

Post by e1ven » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 3:18 PM UTC

marknutter wrote: post #6

e1ven wrote: post #2

Just to remind you of a comment from PG when you posted part one of this nearly a month ago- s/the/a You wrote A Hacker News mobile app. There are quite a few others. While it looks nice and all, There is nothing any more or less official for this mobile web app versus any of the others that are already out there.

I very seriously doubt the OP is trying to pass this off as the "official" Hacker News app. I hate geeky pedantism, but the "the" in this situation may be in reference to this being the only web based hacker news app he knows of.

Then perhaps "My" might have been a better word choice. The title is misleading- This is well plumbed territory.

Not that his app isn't neat- The way he emulated a native app is technically interesting. But the presentation as if it were an official app is misleading.

Here are two others I happen to have bookmarked.

I suspect there are others, as well.

http://hn.gethifi.com

http://ihackernews.com/

Re: How I built a Hacker News mobile web app, Part 2

#10

Post by tferris » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 3:29 PM UTC

Great work from a technical perspective!

Off-topic: Best way to read HN on mobile IMHO is just to take the Android stock browser, surf to HN and forward the article links with a long press on the article titles to Readitlater or similar services without opening the articles. Fast, simple and convenient (and a great example for Android's intents). I think on iOS there some more steps plus the HN site isn't well readable in iOS' stock browser because of the missing word wrap—maybe that's the reason why there are so many HN apps on iOS while we have only one on Android.