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With the risk of sounding like a sour guy, I'm just going to say it: why do people pay money for apps that are essentially web browsers in a shiny package? I a
by micheljansen 16y ago
With the risk of sounding like a sour guy, I'm just going to say it: why do people pay money for apps that are essentially web browsers in a shiny package?
I am not against people making money by providing better access to content that is available for free (who hasn't paid for the odd Twitter app), but just take a look at the list of features on the app's promotion page:
* View top submitted stories, optimized for iPhone
* Explore comments and threads
* Browse web links without quitting using the in-app browser
All of these things are true for browsing Hacker News in mobile Safari as well. That's hardly enough to earn the predicate "insanely great" or the $3 price tag in my world.
Admittedly, using Hacker News on an iPhone is not the best mobile browser experience (it could certainly use some css @media queries and perhaps a meta viewport tag, essentially few minutes of work would do the trick), but that hardly warrants a native app, especially if it's not free.
- logic 16y ago"Admittedly, using Hacker News on an iPhone is not the best mobile browser experience" That's precisely why people are willing to buy an app like this: to improve the experience. Yes, "fixing" HN is easy, if you're pg. If you're just a reader, something like this offers a fix today, for three dollars. (I agree with you, by the way: I won't pay money for a glorified web browsing app. Just pointing out that I think there's a place for apps like these, if only as a means of pointing out to site owners what they could improve.)
- micheljansen 16y agoI agree, although I meant my comment to be taken in general (there are so many of these apps, for so many different websites). In the case of HN there actually has been another reader that fixed the mobile experience for free (as mentioned in trimski's comment): http://toadjaw.com/hn http://toadjaw.com/hn