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Show HN: HackerNewt – Breadth-first exploring HN client for iOS

67 points by hnand 3 days ago | 30 comments

I made a HN client that allows you to explore comments in a breadth-first manner. Compared to the classic depth-first approach, it works much better for the larger threads - you don't lose the context and can easily skip discussions you're not interested in.

Video preview: https://imgur.com/a/tzBdpXw

pvg 3 days ago

A thread 2 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36030350

krishnasangeeth 2 days ago

Isn’t it advice from YC itself to launch multiple times :)

afro88 3 days ago

This is great. Thanks for creating it! Matches how I read comments, and fixes my only gripe with HN: I'm forever missing the touch target of the little [-] to collapse a thread once I have read it. Yes there is a next button too, but I prefer to collapse so I don't see what I've already read when scrolling around.

I found a bug on first launch. Every item was duplicated in the list. A refresh fixed it.

Anyway, thanks for building this, it's very nicely done and useful.

thebruce87m 3 days ago

How does this compare to HACK? Getting fed up with the crash bug that’s been around for years.

CharlesW 3 days ago

I can’t recall it crashing on me (not that I doubt it is for you), but for other issues the author has been extremely responsive. IIRC you can report issues directly from the app.

glitchcrab 3 days ago

Yup, a recent update fixed a bug which I corresponded with the developer about a little while ago; I was very pleased to see it implemented.

eviks 2 days ago

Nice to see innovating trying to solve the common threaded comment design flaw (not a big fan of the forced vertical repositioning on stack un-/grouping as even with animations it slightly breaks your visual fixation)!

Though for the width issue there is a simpler solution for most of the cases (except for very deep trees) - just make the margin smaller.

In the product video there are two relatively big margins - left of the comment box and left of text within the box. But this is pure waste, you don't need so much whitespace to signal text hierarchy.

vinnski 3 days ago

Nicely done - thanks for making it. Not sure if I’ll ever get used to swipe actions between boards though… other than that I appreciate its simplicity. The haptics slider is a nice touch too

sneak 3 days ago

Thanks for not surveilling the users of your app. I bought the premium version.

goodburb 2 days ago

Feature suggestion, a persistent saved word filter for stories, especially on days when the frontpage is mostly politics or AI.

Currently using https://isit.mooo.com for daily usage and http://hnapp.com for advanced search.

krishnasangeeth 2 days ago

You can checkout h for hacker news. It has a search API over algolia.

xp84 3 days ago

I had already downloaded a previous version of this app, so I was happy to see that it was already on my phone. With Octal having an issue recently, it's nice to try out this alternative.

We're very fortunate that so many hackers are intrinsically motivated to make excellent (even free) apps for this purpose, since we like hanging out here!

krishnasangeeth 2 days ago

Congrats on the launch.

I built a similar app with search functionality and bookmarking some time back

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/h-for-hacker-news/id6744145932

This was primarily built as a way to learn building apps. I went for a style similar to the website and tapping the comment closes the parent comment.

recov 3 days ago

Been using it for a while. Sometimes it takes a minute+ to initially refresh feeds but I thank that’s a HN issue?

vrighter 2 days ago

i saw the video, and it seems really similar to just a tree view with all the children collapsed by default. How is this different?

fraXis 3 days ago

Nice job! Will you be releasing an Android version?

defenestrated 3 days ago

For Android users: Download the excellent, and well maintained Harmonic app and enable "Auto-collapse top level comments" to achieve the same BFS effect.

No need to download a new shareware app.

hnand 3 days ago

Thanks! As of now I don't have any plans for Android. It's a native iOS app written in Swift, so that would require building a new app from the ground up.

tnetenbaa 3 days ago

Don't know if you saw, but Swift is coming to Android. Might not require a rebuild after all.

mittermayr 3 days ago

Opened it up, first thing I do is set it to dark because every other HN app runs on dark — immediately prompts me to upgrade and pay. Sorry, but making money by not being annoying is such an old-school way to try and make a buck. Totally understand it can't be free, but then let people pay for things that make your app stand out — not the ability to "let the dark mode toggle stay put", I mean...

xp84 3 days ago

The app's premium unlock appears to be a $6 one-time purchase. Given that it's not a consequential life decision, the way a subscription can sometimes be, I would rather normalize paying for software that is well-made and lovingly maintained instead of having everything be free but it falls into disrepair after some big Apple update because it's too hard to justify working on it anymore.

I have a harder time with software that I have to sign up for a "trial" of a $20 monthly subscription before I can really experience what it's like to use it. With this app, you can see exactly how it works during the daytime at least, and what settings you'd be able to use once you pay, and no trial hanging over your head.

ForceBru 3 days ago

What could make such an app "stand out"?

zamadatix 3 days ago

The app already does a good job of standing out with its main premise and I doubt there are enough other stand out features to add for the niche. The problem really lies in the monetization focusing on the table stakes features up front instead of the stand out features after a while.

tartoran 3 days ago

Should be free first of all, HN is free after all and with it's old tech it is still working well and is also friction free. I've seen plenty of show HN:HN and most don't have traction because the original is just too good. It's probably one reason why it withstood the test of time and why we still have a community here.

zamadatix 3 days ago

I think it's less "too good" and more "$0 but been around 18 years so why bother with any alternative for >=$0 which has been around for 2 months. Also, why do I trust you again?". I.e. "not bad enough".

al_borland 3 days ago

Or it’s that every platform like this that does a major upgrade to the UI is awful. They are almost always driven by people looking to increase revenue at the expense of the user experience. The users hate it and leave in mass. Having seen this pattern time and time again, I don’t know why sites keep doing it, other than then obvious “investor pressure.”

There seems to be an inverse relationship between the spend on development and user experience.

dmd 2 days ago

“Walking is free, therefore bike shops should give away bikes for free.”

ashish01 3 days ago

I also prefer BFS expansion of comments. So I implemented https://hn-reader.pages.dev/ for this. Also has dark mode to be easy on eyes.

vednig 3 days ago

I built one too at hacked.stream few months back in React Native

defenestrated 3 days ago

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