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Ask HN: What are some of the better Hacker News apps?
It's been awhile since it was asked, so I thought it was time to ask again. I'd prefer something with a widget on Android, and I don't want to exclude iOS offerings for those who use that.
I'd also prefer better UIs, of course functionality is important, but in my opinion UI has a functionality factor to it as well.
- disago 9y agoAfter trying many, I settled with Materialistic [1] Its easy to navigate, allows good interaction with HN and is very stable. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.github.hidroh.materialistic https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.github.hidr...
- chirau 9y agoI used it for a bit, it didn't load all the comments. I regretted using it as the default app for HN links.
- jdormit 9y agoUsing it right now! It's very nice, feels native and we'll designed.
- jdormit 9y agoExcept for unfortunate auto-correct errors, of course... ;)
- alifaziz 9y agoBeen using this app for quite some time. The best I've found.
- neumann 9y agoAlso tried a few Android apps, and Materialistic was the one I stayed with.
- anhldbk 9y agoAgree! Totally satisfied with the app.
- winstonschmidt 9y agoQuite happy with Hews [1]. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have a widget and hasn't been updated in a year (but it is open source). [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.leavjenn.hews https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.leavjenn.h...
- kyo3 9y agoHm I'm liking this the most out of the ones posted thus far, and the lack of widget isn't a huge drawback. Being open source is a plus though! Thanks!
- jcalabro 9y agoI second Hews, been using it for a little over six months now after trying a handful of other apps.
- Shorel 9y agoI am also using Hews, but it has some missing features, like editing a comment you just wrote. For just reading, it is probably the best.
- swanson 9y agoI've been using https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.manuelmaly.hn https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.manuelmaly... on Android for a long time. It seems to best jive with the ethos of HN -- stripped down design, focused on the content, and just works.
- assadk 9y agoMiniHack for iOS is great
- mrmondo 9y agoYeah I've stuck with it for years now and while trying others every so often as it has bugs with voting and editing your own posts I think it's still the best by far.
- weinzierl 9y agoDid you report the bugs? I once reported a bug in MiniHack and it was fixed pretty quickly. I think I encountered the problem with editing your own posts but I post rarely on mobile and when I do I'm in a hurry. BTW a HN sandbox would be cool where you could test these things without causing noise. What is the problem with the voting you mentioned?
- seanp2k2 9y agoSame, it seems pretty stable and very usable for the past year or so. The dark theme is nice as well.
- zwily 9y agoI keep going back to MiniHack as well. Simple, solid, very nice.
- somada141 9y agoI gotta say I tried MiniHack which is nice enough but the fact that it doens’t allow you to use Chrome instead of Safari bothered me to no end. Personally, what has worked best for me is an RSS aggregator (I use NewsBlur) combined with a good RSS Reader like Reeder (iOS and OSX) [no affiliation with any of these products]. This way I can sync my ‘read’ entries, favourite my faves, and Pinboard the ones I found really useful for later reference.
- juice_bus 9y agoI've been using http://hn.premii.com/about/ http://hn.premii.com/about/ forever now, the toggle night mode from the homepage is fantastic for switching between dark/light theme very quickly.
- jniles 9y agoI second premii. It caches a lot of content which is useful in low-bandwith environments.
- mwest 9y agoAlso very happy with premii. Mostly due to the offline caching, but also the clean and simple layout, and integration with Pocket.
- nilliams 9y agoAnother premii fan here. Has some nice touches like the night mode mentioned and 'Appearance' settings (font/font-size/colour).
- dotancohen 9y agoHonestly I just stick with the website. What do you feel that an app might give you that the HN website does not? Only on that basis might an app recommendation be appropriate as they all provide some features but are missing others.
- Cyph0n 9y agoThe only thing missing is a notification when someone replies to one of your comments. If you are active, your first "threads" page will quickly fill up with more recent comments, so you end up not noticing replies to older comments.
- omaranto 9y agoI like Dan Grossman's HN Replies (http://www.hnreplies.com http://www.hnreplies.com) for that: it gives you email notifications of comment replies.
- harisamin 9y agoShameless plug but check out mackernews.com for a Mac app :)
- cjCamel 9y agoAre there any Android apps where you can get the Share menu from long press on URL in a comment? Tried all of the ones linked so far and none of them have this. Reason? To feed my Pocket addiction...
- purrcat259 9y agoI got a share option in the menu by long pressing the article in Materialistic
- cjCamel 9y agoDoesn't work on URLs in comments. Helpful if someone posts an interesting looking link but I don't want to get distracted.
- adambard 9y agoSince I haven't seen anyone do so yet, I'll cast my vote for DWAK's app on Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.dwak.holohackernews.app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.dwak.holoha...
- jitl 9y agoThe best option I’ve found is https://hckrnews.com/ https://hckrnews.com/ Not an app, but I think it’s better than almost all of the apps out there. Clean, quick, and has an “open in new tab” feature. Rather than writing my own description, here’s the pitch in the site’s own words: > Hacker News is a great resource. However, I seemed to constantly run into two issues. 1. If I didn't visit at least once a day, top items would scroll off the top pages and I would never see them. 2. If I was procrastinating and visiting the page often, I would find it difficult to determine what was new on the page. That frustration led to hckr news, a chronologic list of items that have made it onto the Hacker News homepage. (https://hckrnews.com/about.html https://hckrnews.com/about.html) I think apps don’t have much to offer since HN has thread collapse and vote-undo these days.
- JonRB 9y ago+1 to that - I love that it's time sorted instead of prioritised by what other people have voted for. I procrastinate/visit enough that I can usually keep up to date with what's happening.
- ahmedfromtunis 9y agoNone. They (or rather the API) don't allow to comment or upvote. Sad.
- MehdiHK 9y agoMaterialistic on play store has both of those functionalities. I'm commenting with it now.
- miguelrochefort 9y agoI keep going back to the website. Although I don't like the design and it's not very usable of mobile (buttons are too small), my consumption flow depends on the "Open in new tab" functionality. This is also why I prefer the Reddit website to the app. I would use a client that let me queue links/threads/comments for future reading. I'll probably end up building it.
- gavinward 9y agoIronically I had to open this in a browser to make this comment (since no app supports that advanced feature) but FYI the mobile version of Firefox supports the queueing up of multiple links for later viewing, rather than immediately switching to the firefox app every time you open a link. It's not perfectly analogous to "open in new tab" on a desktop but you might find it helpful. I know nobody uses Firefox on mobile but it seems decent enough to me.
- miguelrochefort 9y agoI use Chrome on my phone. "Open in new tab" works just like on the desktop. I wish these basic commands were first class: - undo/previous/back - read later/snooze/postpone/queue - done/next/ignore/skip - more/details - agree/upvote/recommend/endorse - disagree/downvote - improve/contribute/comment/add We could have focused interfaces like Tinder's (one item at a time) and easily navigate articles/comments/videos/reviews/products on any device.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kgwxd 9y agoNew apps shouldn't be needed for this kind of thing. Get an RSS reader and use https://news.ycombinator.com/rss https://news.ycombinator.com/rss. If you want to get your comment replies too, ask HN to start providing a feed for it, if they do, I couldn't find it. Start using the reader for everything you can. Most YouTube channels have a hidden feed, Reddit has feeds, most sites worth a damn have feeds. You will save countless hours of your life never having to sift through things you've already read or intentionally skipped. You can add your own filters for junk sites that are going to show you a pay wall, tell you to allow tracking or require you to sign up.
- hypercluster 9y agoI tried that but it gets quite tedious with HN. Even with hnrss.org "frontpage" lots of stories show up. And even with a filter >10 points there's a ton to look at. Still haven't figured out a good way to consume HN.
- jasonkostempski 9y agoCan you think of a feature a standalone app could provide to help with those concerns? Maybe you're just trying to consume too much at once? I leave my RSS reader running in the background against the regular feed and I've never felt like it was too much, even after the weekend. Only thing that bothers me is when titles get adjusted, they get introduced as new items but I'm willing to put up with that in order to never have to rescan over anything else ever again. I only have 4 other, very low volume feeds I deal with, maybe that's why HNs volume doesn't seem as bad to me.
- ufmace 9y agoTried a few, but honestly, the website seems to be better. I suppose the UI could be a little spiffier, but it not only works, but keeps working long-term. Most of the apps I've tried work okay-ish at first, and then fall into disrepair after a year or two due to some combination of developer boredom and site/API changes.
- jaredcwhite 9y agoSurprised nobody's mentioned: https://app.hackerwebapp.com https://app.hackerwebapp.com The web version is clean and fast, and there's a native iOS and Android app out now as well. (Funny backstory: before the native iOS app was released, the mobile web version already felt like a native app, and instead the native app is nearly indistinguishable from the web app. However, the native app is better in that links open up in the Safari View Controller, so it's easier to pop back and forth between websites and the news feed.)
- izolate 9y agoNo complaints with Boreal (iOS)
- mercer 9y agoI'm working on my own Better and Improved, but for now i use hn.premii.com for my mobile needs, and hckrnews.com with a few userscripts for everything else. EDIT: and hn.algolia.com for anything vaguely related to search.
- BrandoElFollito 9y agoI use Feedly on the feed. The huge advantage is that the design is clean and that scrolled down items are automatically marked as read.