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Ask HN: Best Hacker News client for iOS?

14 points by qubex ↗ HN
I've encountered some grief finding a suitable Hacker News client for iOS (iPhone and iPad), which is bizarre because a cursory search on the App Store reveals so many of them.

My (if I may say so myself) fairly basic criteria are that the app I choose must function both on iPhone (preferably optimised for iPhone X) and iPad and allow me to log into my account to comment as myself.

This has turned out to be quite a chore. I've tried free, paid, in-app-purchase, and subscription-based (!) apps. They tend to suck quite diffusely: many do not support logging into one's account of those that purportedly do, many return an (inappropriate) authentication error (and are so >1 year old, so I suppose some change in the login API some time ago caused this state of affairs and that the apps have languished unmaintained since then). “Boreal” is particularly infuriating as it requires a subscription to log into one's account and to read more than 75 stories per week, and once paid for doeen't log in anyway.

I've settled on the free MiniHack as being the best one so far, and it comes extraordinarily close to meeting all my criteria (the only shortfall is lack of optimisation for iPhone X's screen, and lack of notifictions).

“Hacker Buzz” is the newest and looks graphically very promising, but doesn't support login. I haven't heard back from the developer I tried to contact through the feedback form either.

What apps do you recommend? (For various reasons, I'm not really a fan of using the web-browser, so please don't go down the “just use the webpage” route... of course one can use the webpage, but I'm looking for stand-alone app solutions.)

Thanks.

50 comments

[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 109 ms ] thread
chmaynard
Safari works well for me.
qubex
“I'm not really a fan of using the web-browser, so please don't go the “just use the webpage” route...” Why did I even bother writing that?
iamthirsty
I have no idea, but it is a legitimate answer, honestly.
sbmassey
You should probably put it at the top - otherwise those of us happily using the browser have to skim over a lot of stuff on various useless apps before we can see that you ruled out the obvious (to us) solution.
qubex
The question I’m asking is right there at the top, and it’s about apps. I like making sure people have read what I have written before firing off an unconsidered reply. Apparently it’s turning out to be a useful filter to screen out those that are willing to give their opinion without investing the effort in understanding the question.
chmaynard
I’m an iOS developer. I once considered writing a Hacker News app. After looking into what would be involved, I decided it would be a waste of time. The API is inadequate and YC makes no guarantees about future expansion.
qubex
Fair enough… but still, there’s clearly a big population, and tracking changes in login systems is nothing new, is it?
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songgao
Have you tried this one?

Hacker News (YC) by Dharmesh Patel https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-yc/id713733435?m...

It’s worked fairly well for me as a light user.

nolite
I've also settled on this one as the least sucky.. There are still some issues as you can't easily see your comment history, and there's often a bug when you click a story directly, you can't see the content..

But again, its the least sucky I've found

qubex
None that I have seen allow one to easily see and track one’s comment history. That would seem to be a pretty desirable feature, but it is not implemented by anybody, which is bizarre.
qubex
I’ve tried it, yes. It does indeed rank towards the top in terms of non-suckiness, but it fails one of my criterions on account of not having a native iPad version.
cosbas
I use reeder and am very happy with it.
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holydude
I use Feedly not only for hn
jore
I also use feedly, but you can't comment there, right? And you do not see the source of the link, which is sometimes quite helpful
sharjeelsayed
My setup is like this

RSS Reader (Web/iOS/Android): Import http://opml.SharjeelSayed.com , into Inoreader.com

News Notifications (iOS/Android): Add http://rss.SharjeelSayed.com into the 'Feed URL' field in https://IFTTT.com/applets/456148p

http://rss.SharjeelSayed.com has the 'Must Read' part of the OPML file http://opml.SharjeelSayed.com so I get alerts for important stuff.

theoldreader.com works well too on the mobile browser (Safari/Chrome). Import http://opml.SharjeelSayed.com into it.

hungerstrike
I don't think it's a good idea for any app developer to make an app that lets you login to a website that they don't own, especially that doesn't offer an authentication API. What happens when the website changes anything? The app breaks immediately...

The best Hacker News client for getting the headlines is http://hckrnews.com/

You didn't list any criteria besides "runs on iOS and lets me login". A webbrowser is a native app which fits that criteria perfectly - so what's your reasoning for not wanting to use it and what do you want an app to do that the webbrowser app can't do?

qubex
I don’t want to go through a browser. That’s a fundamental desire.
hungerstrike
That's fine. I can relate to having a strong preference for something that other people don't really get. But, I can usually explain why. (Usually!)

I'm just curious - what's the reason that it's a fundamental desire?

qubex
As I have explained elsewhere in the responses, it is a matter of ”mental gymnastics”: using something through a web-browser entails two nested operations: first switching to the browser and then browsing to the content (via URL, bookmark, or tab choice) whereas switching from one app to another is a flat hierarchy.
hungerstrike
If you put a link to the website on your home screen, it opens in a separate app from the browser.
nindalf
I can give a strong recommendation to Materialistic - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.github.hidr...

It has every feature you asked for and its a pleasure to use. The only place it fell short was the lack of a downvote feature.

qubex
Uhm… am I missing something blindingly obvious or is this an app for Android, not iOS?
nindalf
I'm so sorry. I got mixed up. The client I use on iOS (Hacker News Zero) is good doesn't have the features you wanted, like login.
qubex
I’ll keep it in mind just in case I ever switch to Android. ;)
azinman2
I’m very curious to know what the various reasons are against the web browser. I’ve tried many clients over the years, and nothing has ever beaten the browser. HN is super fast to load, I get all of the functionality, the layout works well, it’s dense enough to allow me to quickly skim but light/structured enough to not make it a chore, and I get all of the advantages of bookmarking, tabs, browser syncing, etc that Safari provides.
qubex
It’s a matter of mental gymnastics and “containers”: accessing anything through the browser requires first switching to the browser, and then getting to a page (or tab, or whatever) inside the browser, which is two hops — it’s a nested operation. Switching to a dedicated app is one hop, and is cognitively more proximate as it is a flat hierarchy with no nesting.
noahdesu
I hear ya. I think it might be nice to be able to create psuedo-apps that function as Safari/Chrome bookmarks.
qubex
At one point I did just that: I put a “web-app” bookmark on my iOS home-screen. It worked, up to a point, but is very dissatisfying for a whole host of reasons (mainly, it messes with the browser’s state).
noahdesu
Hmm.. it's too bad that doesn't work better, because at least for HN, I find the webapp to be pretty decent.
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ecesena
With Share > Add to Home Screen, you can have an icon that opens a new safari tab on hn.

I’m not saying this is better than an app, but just wanted to share that it’s doable.

moltar
Almost impossible to hit upvote on iPhone SE.

Comment compose box is tiny.

twobyfour
This. It saved me the trouble of posting "your web browser of choice" as an honest but snarky answer.
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jitl
I’ve similarly tried about eight apps, on both iOS and Android, and have never found an app good enough to keep.

Instead, I use https://hckrnews.com/

The main feature is to order front-page stories by time, rather than by score.

This lets you easily find the latest content, instead of needing to review all 20+ titles on the front page to see if anything is new.

The about page has a great feature list. It solves almost every pain point I have with HN’s interface in a thoughtful way. Any further description would be a poorly worded rehash.

Check it out: https://hckrnews.com/about.html

hsk823
Reeder
qubex
Can you post comments as yourself through Reeder?
randomsearch
MiniHack. Tried a bunch of free apps then paid for it after some googling. Supports login and comments. Has a dark interface theme.
qubex
As I wrote in the post, MiniHack is the one I have currently settled on.

My only concern is that it appears only very lightly maintained, hasn’t had an update for the iPhone X’s screen, and has no support for notifications.

Lammy
MiniHack was my favorite as well after going through all the available clients recently. The only thing that annoys me is how collapsing comments is an awkward swipe to the left instead of just a tap like most threaded discussion apps. Tapping brings up a menu with post actions. I emailed the dev some feedback but never got a reply.
shortcord
I use MiniHack, as well.

One thing I don’t like is it can be difficult to click on links in comments. It often clicks on the overall comment rather than the link.

throthro
Not a HN app, but works fine: Reeder + feedbin.me

Keeps you logged in if you want to comment/upvote. Tracks all stories that managed to main page via RSS feed.