12 ms·

GitHub for mobile is now available

428 points by theBashShell 7y ago

frizkie 7y ago
Anyone not seeing the app on the Apple app store? The link in the blog post works, but I can't find it from search on my phone. EDIT: I was able to open the app store link on my phone, and it worked then. Apple's indexes not updated I guess?
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  Same. My guess is some manner of caching, or that it being new makes it drastically less popular than all of the existing results?
- andrewbarba 7y ago
  I’ve seen brand new apps take up to 48 hours to show up in search results.
- nicwolff 7y ago
  It's under "Apps We Love Right Now" in the iPhone's App Store, but doesn't appear in search results for "github" at all...
- TomatoTomato 7y ago
  Search for github the developer. It will show all of github's apps.
bhairoxx 7y ago
What's the tech? Fully native, React Native or something else?
- saagarjha 7y ago
  The iOS app is fully native. Not sure about the Android app.
- monkey_slap 7y ago
  Both iOS (Swift) and Android (Kotlin) are fully native
- noughtme 7y ago
  First line of the post: “At Universe, we announced GitHub for mobile as a fully-native GitHub experience on iOS and Android.”
veeralpatel979 7y ago
I tried out the beta version of GitHub's iOS app. I didn't find a single bug in it, and I really enjoyed using it for casually browsing code on my phone. I would highly recommend downloading it if you sometimes take a look at GitHub repos when on your phone, which I think is most programmers. Unfortunately I didn't use it for about fourteen days or something so my beta access was taken away :(
- saagarjha 7y ago
  I like the GitHub for iOS app, but I've seen a number of things I wish were improved or were outright buggy and they unfortunately didn't seem very receptive of the feedback I sent them :(
  - monkey_slap 7y ago
    Feel free to post your feedback here or my email (bio). Sorry if we didn't get back to you on your feedback.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Hi, thanks for reaching out! Here's a couple I've submitted to mobilefeedback@github.com: * Repository names aren't centered to the screen; they're centered to the space left between the bar button items. This might be intentional but is somewhat strange and out-of-place on iOS. * Repositories with "strange" licenses show up with "None" rather than "tap here to see the actual license". * Submodules used to show up as "Something went wrong". Now they show up as "Unable to view file". * Tabs don't actually line up to a character boundary. Since you're here, a couple more that I haven't bothered to get around to submitting: * There's a lot of places that could use search fields. The repositories list, the organizations list, notifications, individual repositories (i.e. code search/file search)… * A view to see a list of commits would be nice. * There's a text-field looking thing on my profile for a status that I cannot actually figure out how to put text into. * It'd be nice if links had the option of opening in SFSafariViewController. * Code viewing is a bit uncomfortable, especially on smaller screens. The font size is a tad large, line spacing is pretty big, and not being able to disable wrapping on demand is somewhat inconvenient. * It'd be nice to be able to review multiple lines at once. I have a bunch more but I can't really recall them at the moment, so I'll keep submitting feedback in-app and hoping that you can get around to taking a look at it. Thanks!
yur3i__ 7y ago
For the free software crowd, fasthub-libre has been around on fdroid for a while
- RMPR 7y ago
  Interesting, didn't know about that one, how does it compare to Octodroid?
  - smichel17 7y ago
    I personally prefer Octodroid. When last I used Fasthub, it felt more ~~polished~~ snazzy but in terms of actually use there was just way too much navigation chrome on the screen. It didn't get out of my way and let me engage with the content. That said, this was a couple years ago and it may have changed.
calpaterson 7y ago
They previously had an app. It seems it was removed from app stores. > At Universe [...] What is universe?
- XiZhao 7y ago
  Universe is GitHub's annual developer conference. https://githubuniverse.com/ https://githubuniverse.com/
hiram112 7y ago
I'm not all that interested in being able to use Git itself on my phone or even tablet. It's not practical, and there already exists several decent apps for doing so. I'd much rather have Github provide an app that shows me trends and analytics that only they have access to. There are (or were) a few sites and apps that provided a way to see most starred repos by various criteria like all-time vs last week, language, company, search term, etc., but they're hit or miss, and often die when Github changes their API. Not only is it very helpful for my career, but I also personally enjoy seeing what is becoming very popular out there, and what I might be able to use on future projects. I think Github is missing out on some money if they don't end up monetizing their knowledge of what projects are most popular (beyond just stars and forks) - any project lead or architect who is still using sales teams, marketing, etc. to decide on what tools and frameworks to use is going to be left in the dust by the ones who keep up to date on what's trending at Github, especially for higher level projects related to Kubernetes, clustering, DB scaling, etc.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  The GitHub app doesn't let you use Git from your mobile device; it's more about providing access to the service's "social" features.
ozten 7y ago
Will the mobile web view be improved I noticed that switch to desktop link was broken a few hours ago, perhaps a deployment glitch?
stoksc 7y ago
Trying to follow a link on a readme or something to another file within the github repo always results in “something went wrong” (iOS).
- monkey_slap 7y ago
  This is probably links within the readme (like #installation in a table of contents). Known problem that we didn't get to fixing, but we're going to fix this soon. Thanks for the report.
ilikehurdles 7y ago
I wish their web experience was improved on mobile. I have no interest in downloading apps of 90% of the websites I visit on my mobile browser. Right now the rare times I need to use github on mobile, I almost always have to switch to the desktop view because their mobile offering is so lacking in critical features.
- chatmasta 7y ago
  I wish they showed the full readme by default on mobile repository pages. If I'm on my phone, there's a good chance I'm only there to look at the readme, anyway. Just let the readme extend down without needing to expand it. Or at least, don't make expanding it a new page load.
  - apple4ever 7y ago
    Agree with you there. Many times I have been frustrated that I have to find and then click the readme button.
  - james_s_tayler 7y ago
    So much this.
- nixpulvis 7y ago
  I just miss the desktop mode link on the bottom of every page. Sure it's harder to use, and I spend most of my time in mobile view, but sometimes I just need to get shit done. I actually sent them a support ticket about this, and this was their reply: "I understand how the previous workflow would be useful, and we apologize for the inconvenience it has caused. However, the good news is that the mobile team is working on releasing iOS and Android GitHub mobile applications early next year, which should resolve some of the limitations of the current mobile site." Like really, just give me the desktop view back ffs.
  - jen20 7y ago
    On iOS at least, the "Request Desktop Site" option has been moved under the reader options in the URL bar. It seems to work for me, though is annoying.
makecheck 7y ago
Definitely recommend installing the app by clicking on the link in the blog. The App Store’s search is so terrible that it’s basically impossible to find this by searching for “GitHub”.
- AgloeDreams 7y ago
  I think it is because it is cached, common on new releases. It will show nice and high after a few hours.
z3t4 7y ago
I use the main site on mobile. My browser, Opera, automatically makes the site "responsive" when I zoom in. The main Github repo view is very well designed.
dochtman 7y ago
I've been using betas for the Android app, but in my experience there's still a lot of paper cuts here. For example, I do quite a few code reviews on my Pixel 2, but what drives me crazy is that the lines in the diffs wrap! On top of that, the code font it uses is pretty large, so wrapping happens often and makes reviewing much harder. The support for per-commit code review (which is only so-so in the desktop web experience) is even harder to use on mobile. The main activity feed from / is nowhere to be seen, even though this is something I use daily on my laptops (long-standing pet peeve, since this is also non-existent in the mobile web view). If you follow a link to particular issue comment (for example, from the bottom of a notification email), the Android app will just land you at the top of the issue. So, having the app is an improvement over the mobile web experience (particularly since the PR review approval button was impossible to hit in the mobile web view without zooming), but IMO there's still a lot to be done here, and I hope they keep executing on it.
- PopeDotNinja 7y ago
  When I really have to use GitHub on mobile, I usually use the browser in desktop mode.
  - nixpulvis 7y ago
    How can I trick it into thinking I'm on desktop. Firefox's (for iOS) "Request Desktop Site" button doesn't work for me.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Doesn’t GitHub itself give you an option to switch to desktop?
    - leegraham 7y ago
      There should be a link in the footer that changes it to the desktop version.
      - matthewhartmans 7y ago
techntoke 7y ago
GitLab needs an official app now too
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sbr464 7y ago
It let me sign in without 2factor, which is definitely enabled across our org. -edit It does use 2fa, I retried signing out of the browser and app, and then it prompted. It was using the browser token.
- aclelland 7y ago
  If you were already logged in through your default browser it'll use that to authenticate you through oauth.
  - sbr464 7y ago
    Ok, that makes sense if true. It asked for my password, so wasn’t clear.
- barkerja 7y ago
  I believe that org restriction applies only to third-party application. This app is a first-party app.
  - crazysim 7y ago
    That can't be right? Is it? If so, note to self; use first party app's token.
dstaley 7y ago
The single biggest gripe I have with GitHub on Android is that when I click on a GitHub link to a new repo, it asks if I want to open the repo in Chrome or GitHub. This happens for every. single. repo. I think they messed up their URL intent handler such that each repo counts as a different intent. It's super annoying.
- AlphaWeaver 7y ago
  Android recently rolled out a change which sometimes requires you to update the preference to "Always open *.com links in this app" in the application page in the system settings dialog. This might be what's causing this issue.
  - dstaley 7y ago
    Oh my god you're a life saver. Thank you so much for pointing that out!
open-paren 7y ago
Maybe it's ironic, or maybe I am a poor searcher, but I can't find the source code for the app anywhere.
- tradertef 7y ago
  Same with me. I scrolled down alot but still not there.. Maybe a caching issue.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  It’s apparently closed-source.
- Scarbutt 7y ago
  Where does it says it's open source?
  - choward 7y ago
    Why not open source it? It's code that runs on my phone, not on their servers. I have no reason to download an app that could just be a well designed web site. It being closed source makes me very suspicious of it. What does GitHub have to hide? It's not like the app is some breakthrough innovation.
    - govg 7y ago
      ...I mean that is true of a lot of apps on the App Store right now, I don't think developers are under any impression that they have to make every app open source.
      - choward 7y ago
        True. This is why I don't install any apps. And you would think a company who's business model revolves around open source would be more likely to open source their app.
        7y ago
msh 7y ago
Hmm does not really seem to be a git client, more the social fluff. I guess working copy is still the best git client for ios.
- robenkleene 7y ago
  I find GitHub's app strategy incredibly bizarre: On the desktop, where there are tons of git clients already (not to mention the command line) GitHub's app is just another git client. Here I'd expect them to emphasize their social features because that's what would differentiate it from other git clients, and it's what differentiates their entire product from other git hosts. Then on mobile, where there's very little git client competition, pretty much just Working Copy, they don't make a git client, and instead emphasize the social features...
  - cormacrelf 7y ago
    Sounds right to me? You wouldn’t edit code on your phone. Git client on an iPad is barely usable to edit anything, just give up and use ssh. On a desktop, the browser already has the social features, and it would be a waste of your employees to constantly replicate work to the desktop client. GitHub isn’t competing against Working Copy, or SourceTree. It’s competing against GitLab etc. So on desktop, they aimed to make an oversimplified beginner’s git client, to encourage beginners to use GitHub over alternatives. On mobile I suspect it was just too hard to build what people needed as a web app. Some people want push, which iOS web apps can’t do. May as well have it do a bunch of other things people like to do from their phone, and beat web with native controls.
    - robenkleene 7y ago
      Your point about why the GitHub is about the social features on mobile is spot on to me. But the point about the desktop client I don't really follow, and that's my issue with GitHub's app product strategy: I think both apps should be about the social features. I don't understand why a beginner's git client is important (is that really what GitHub Desktop is supposed to be?). And I'm not sure what this means: "it would be a waste of your employees to constantly replicate work to the desktop client"? I want a social GitHub Desktop client because I want the better integration with my desktop, e.g., I want notifications for PR reviews and comments on issues, and I want to be able to jump immediately to the actual source code file being commented on in my local copy of the source. It seems like these are similar benefits to why Slack has a desktop app for example. And these are the types of integrations that would further differentiate GitHub from other git hosts.
maxk42 7y ago
I'm having trouble understanding the use case here. If someone submits a pull request, don't I have to review that in a dev environment? Same for downloading / trying out a project. What is the utility of having access via mobile?
- robmccoll 7y ago
  For a small change set with CI that runs automatically against PRs for both the branch and the result of the merge, I think this is a useful and safe option to quickly review something. Similarly if you do a lot of your project management through GitHub, having the ability to file and track issues from your phone is nice.
AgloeDreams 7y ago
Really great, has push notifications all that. I just wish I got a push notification...for when I'm assigned to review a PR. Really annoying.
- monkey_slap 7y ago
  Thanks for this feedback, giving people more options for push notifications is on our roadmap! Including letting you set schedules for when you can receive them.
  - AgloeDreams 7y ago
    That right there is killer. Thanks!
sysashi 7y ago
I'm really curious why would you need a special app to view text? Why browser is not sufficient enough for that use?
- ducaale 7y ago
  Viewing large files such as this one https://github.com/replit/play/blob/master/play/play.py https://github.com/replit/play/blob/master/play/play.py crash my feeble galaxy note8. Viewing the same file on this app does not cause issues so that is one use case I guess?
  - sysashi 7y ago
    Seems like that, yeah. But again, I believe your issue is related to some non-optimized content for mobile. Perhaps the thing that crashes is syntax highlighting script, whereas on mobile they have something native. (just a guess..)
genieyclo 7y ago
Thanks! Any plans for GitHub Enterprise support?
- monkey_slap 7y ago
  The app supports Enterprise Cloud today, and Enterprise Server is on the roadmap!
  - genieyclo 7y ago
    can’t wait
rvz 7y ago
It appears that Facebook for programmers now has an official app which has finally surfaced on the App Stores. However, this may be terrible news for other third-party apps since Apple, Microsoft and Github can work together to forcibly shut down any unauthorised clients with legal action due to this release.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  How?
  - rvz 7y ago
    Well, I see no third party apps for having a full client for Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook or Discord at least on the iOS App Store due to this rule [0], but I certainly won't be surprised if they do the same for Google Play if they succeed on the App Store with Apple. GitHub can easily file a complaint and Apple will happily remove any infringing app off of the App Store. [0] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#intellectual-property https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#int...
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      > If your app uses, accesses, monetizes access to, or displays content from a third-party service, ensure that you are specifically permitted to do so under the service’s terms of use. GitHub provides an API to access all of these things.
      - rvz 7y ago
        True, but the same was said for Instagram and Twitter. They both still have a public API for developers and then cracked down on the third-party apps and clients on the App Store with a policy change. Sure, developers can still use these public APIs as long as they don't release an app that is a full clone of their official apps. If Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Discord can draw the line on third-party clones, with the release of the official GitHub apps, they can also do this too.
Funes- 7y ago
Could someone explain to me why would anyone use GitHub on their phones rather than on a desktop computer? I can't seem to come up with a situation in which I'd reasonably need to interrupt anything I'm doing in order to check GitHub on my phone.
- apoggi419 7y ago
  I find that it's nice to review pull requests or just browse through repositories/code on your phone if you don't have access to your laptop.
- baddox 7y ago
  Let’s set aside the word “need” and just go with “want.” Sometimes I want to use GitHub on my phone because I’m in bed and want to read over some code, or I’m on the bus to work in the morning and I want to get a head start on a PR a coworker sent me. I don’t really understand why GitHub is a crazier thing to do on one’s phone than, well, anything else really.
- thih9 7y ago
  > Could someone explain to me why would someone use GitHub on their phones rather than on a desktop computer? I think I don't understand the question; how is github's app different than e.g. airbnb's?
  - picozeta 7y ago
    How is it not totally different? People use Airbnb to rent apartments and people use GitHub to develop and share source code for software.
    - thih9 7y ago
      Let me be more precise: "how is github's app [existence] different than e.g. airbnb's?". The grandparent asked a question, my point is that you could replace "github" with any other company that keeps both a web app and a mobile app: > > Could someone explain to me why would someone use GitHub on their phones rather than on a desktop computer?
branon 7y ago
I use FastHub[0] (also the fork called FastHub-Libre[1]) and don't intend to switch away anytime soon. Is Microsoft's new app for GitHub free software, or even open-source software? If not, this is laughably ironic. [0] https://github.com/k0shk0sh/FastHub https://github.com/k0shk0sh/FastHub [1] https://github.com/thermatk/FastHub-Libre https://github.com/thermatk/FastHub-Libre
- richardwhiuk 7y ago
  How? GitHub itself isn't open-source.
- tracker1 7y ago
  Not really ironic in either way... Github's features themselves are not open-source, and not sure if their desktop apps are open either. I try not to do too much on my phone regarding Github, I feel like anything with lots of what should be preformatted text on a phone is just horrible in general.
bnycum 7y ago
My only wish is for multiple account support, figured that would be a feature. I have a personal and work account.
windthrown 7y ago
I can't find the source code. Is this app not open-source and hosted on Github?
- sdan 7y ago
  I'm fairly sure a good chunk of Github isn't open sourced either, no?
  - windthrown 7y ago
    You appear to be correct. I had never even thought to check and just assumed that it was!
- saagarjha 7y ago
  No, it’s closed source.
  - nerder92 7y ago
    Can't understand why, since is only the frontend :(
- RMPR 7y ago
  You can sense the irony there.
  - Ohn0 7y ago
    This is why I use GitLab
    - RMPR 7y ago
      I second this, considering the fact that the two platforms have an equivalent feature set, there's also Drew Devault's platform: source hut (I think) which seems very good.
AndyKelley 7y ago
I can't recommend Octodroid enough. Been using it for years, and it already does all this stuff. It's easily the most well designed and engineered app on my phone. I'm not even going to bother checking out this official app because Octodroid is perfect.
- RMPR 7y ago
  Not to mention that it's also open source and available on F-Droid, so not bothering with managing apk manually for those who don't use Playstore.
cryptonector 7y ago
I can't find it on the Apple app store among the see of other GitHub apps. I had to visit HN, find this story, and click the link to the app.
- rcarmo 7y ago
  Go to the post and click on the direct link, the catalogue front-ends aren't synced yet.
rcarmo 7y ago
Nice. At least in a first glance, and on the iPad.
hprotagonist 7y ago
https://workingcopy.app https://workingcopy.app is my go-to here. Strongly recommended. And the author responds to emails all the time.
niedzielski 7y ago
Interesting! I was thinking that GitHub had moved away from native mobile apps. Source code for the old GitHub Android native app: https://github.com/github/android https://github.com/github/android
Quarrelsome 7y ago
As someone that works for an organisation that develops almost 100% desktop applications and desktop form-factor web applications, I've been somewhat terrified of the new entrants into the workforce that started on phones as opposed to computers. It seems like nobody is taking their existence and eventual assumption of purchasing decision making powers seriously and I figure we'll suffer in the long-term as an organisation because of this. I had been trying to tell myself that people still "sit down at a desktop to do work" to make myself feel better about our inaction over this it but that github is spending on mobile form factor makes me feel like I'm lying to myself about that. What are people's general takes on this? I sway towards "in twenty years it will start to be a massive deal" but I struggle to find a convincing platform to soapbox on this to the organisation at large.
- mscasts 7y ago
  My take is that most companies don't need a native app unless they're specifically targeting mobile users and doesn't have a need for desktop users. So you're better off generally to make the app a web app. If that doesn't work yet, are you sure about that? With web assembly and some new browser apis it's really very few apps left that actually need the native experience. Sure if you build apps for cars, planes or something like that I understand that you want the native experience. But there is also tons of "native with an asterisk" tools like Xamarin and React Native for example. Sure the app may be a bit larger but do users really care? With those kind of technologies you can build native for all platforms easily. The choice really is up to the developers and there is lots of choices nowadays, thankfully.
  - Quarrelsome 7y ago
    A lot of this is legacy which is why making the argument for change is one about expense. Its about justifying the expense by selling the hot path of the use-case of using technical applications on a phone. Everyone is sunk-cost fallacy here over the potential of mobile use-cases, they're dismissed as a use-case. I vaguely bought into the idea for a while and now github are like: > Review PRs and look at code on a mobile form factor and now I'm like: > oh, so that use-case is a thing? I'm terrified some CTO in twenty years time of an org we want to sell it to will instantly shitcan our offering because it doesn't support mobile use-cases. Because mobile is their culture and the reason we don't value it today is _only_ because mobile isn't the culture we grew up with.
brenden2 7y ago
I'm not installing a stupid app so Microsoft can collect data on me. Please just make the website continue to work properly in a mobile browser.
- bionoid 7y ago
  > I'm not installing a stupid app so Microsoft can collect data on me. This is going far off topic, but I am currently consulting with a client that requested using Visual Studio Community Edition [2019] for the project. I was a month into development, when all of a sudden one morning, it was no longer possible to start Visual Studio. Why? Because I had not connected it to my Microsoft account, of course... I wonder how people put up with this..
  - MuffinFlavored 7y ago
    > I wonder how people put up with this.. The same way hundreds of thousands of people (if not millions) use GitHub Desktop connected to their GitHub accounts?
    - bionoid 7y ago
      Well in that case you are using a cloud-based service, it makes sense that you have to authenticate. But I was writing and building C++ code just fine locally, and I could have continued doing that if it wasn't for the dark pattern.
  - otterlicious 7y ago
    You can pay for Visual Studio with money if you don't want to pay for it with your data. That's more than you can say for a lot of things...
pdeuchler 7y ago
Crazy to me that they've released this without a way for organizations to disable using it with private repos... in no way shape or form do I want engineers using this app to access company IP on their personal phones.
- sdtransier 7y ago
  Can they not already just sign into the website on their personal phones?
- jkirsteins 7y ago
  Why are you against them using an app for something they are authorized doing in a browser?
peterallport 7y ago
Been looking forward to this day for a long time! Congrats to the GitHub iOS team on a job well done on this first release!
roflchoppa 7y ago
Finally can do reviews on the loo.
gdevenyi 7y ago
Compared to octodroid this is missing my follow feed projects and people I follow.
nojvek 7y ago
I don’t understand why this couldn’t be a mobile site. Usually native mobile apps are a subset of the desktop site. Many lag in features and the apps get abandoned since their teams get re-orged. GitHub, you could have shown the world what a truly responsive and progressive website GitHub is.
tophattom 7y ago
I'm not able to log in on Android. Clicking "Sign in" opens browser (Firefox Preview in my case) where I get the standard GitHub login flow with 2FA. But after logging in it goes back to app and the Sign in button is still there and nothing happens.
luisehk 7y ago
I understand some folks may find this helpful but I'd rather not normalize working from my phone.
m0zg 7y ago
Needs multiple account support IMO. A lot of us have a separate "work" and "personal" accounts.
dang 7y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21527268 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21527268
AzzieElbab 7y ago
Very cool. Android browsers been freezing/hanging with code and markdown pages
elpakal 7y ago
Sweet! I was at universe when this was announced and have been using the iOS Testflight releases. Good to see the progress and congrats to the team. Now... any plans to open source these repos?!
rahimnathwani 7y ago
I'm not able to log in on Android. This is what I did: 1. click the install button in Google Play the app 2. open chrome and continue browsing HN 3. come across an HN post that's hosted on GitHub, and click on it 4. When prompted, tell Android that I always want to open GitHub links in the GitHub app 5. When the app opens, tap the sign in button Expected: a form to enter my username Actual: app disappears and I'm back at the launcher Tried this to fix it: - force quit the app - clear storage and cache Didn't work. What I guess is happening: GitHub app is trying to redirect me to the system browser to log in, but Android intercepts the link as it's on the GitHub.com domain, so should be opened by the GitHub app. But around that time, the GitHub app decides it wants to background itself and wait to be reopened by an intent, once the browser completes the auth process. Just a guess.
- gullevek 7y ago
  On iOS I have the same issue. When I click on the "Sign In" black button it just reloads the app. I tried it on Wi-Fi and normal mobile network.
apatheticonion 7y ago
Great work but I would have much rather this been a progressive web application (installable web application).
laacz 7y ago
The thing is. I was not able to find the app in Appstore when searching for "github". Had to linked page on device, then click on link there.
pixel_fcker 7y ago
Installed it on iOS to try it out. Soon after, browsing HN on Safari I click on a link to an interesting-looking repo, which switches me to the GitHub app and shows me the raw text of the readme.md. Uninstalled it straight away.
- bitten 7y ago
  What's the problem with that, or what do you expect? GitHub mobile web truncates the README so you'd have to click twice (which always annoyed me about GitHub mobile web!). Is there not a way to configure the deep links?
  - pixel_fcker 7y ago
    I would expect it to show me the readme rendered, same as visiting it in a browser does. There didn’t appear to be a way to show it rendered at all either. Which is a massive problem if it’s going to hijack my browser so I cannot see it rendered at all from my mobile.
thanksforfish 7y ago
I'm trying this out for code review on public transit. My use case is that I batch a few small code reviews for the end of the day, and check on the status of some larger reviews that doing early reviews or working through edits. I've previously been using the website on a mobile web browser, but it's not mobile optimized so touch points are fiddly, views need to be adjusted, long lines are hard to read, and I need to be wary about losing connection when adding a comment. Complex reviews sometimes take review of code in other files, jumping back and forth, so the mobile experience is lacking. First impression is that the contrast for the red/green highlights seems a little low. I may just not be used to the color scheme though.

428 points by theBashShell 7y ago

Anyone not seeing the app on the Apple app store? The link in the blog post works, but I can't find it from search on my phone. EDIT: I was able to open the app store link on my phone, and it worked then. Apple's indexes not updated I guess?

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
Same. My guess is some manner of caching, or that it being new makes it drastically less popular than all of the existing results?
andrewbarba 7y ago
I’ve seen brand new apps take up to 48 hours to show up in search results.
nicwolff 7y ago
It's under "Apps We Love Right Now" in the iPhone's App Store, but doesn't appear in search results for "github" at all...
TomatoTomato 7y ago
Search for github the developer. It will show all of github's apps.

bhairoxx 7y ago

What's the tech? Fully native, React Native or something else?

saagarjha 7y ago
The iOS app is fully native. Not sure about the Android app.
monkey_slap 7y ago
Both iOS (Swift) and Android (Kotlin) are fully native
noughtme 7y ago
First line of the post: “At Universe, we announced GitHub for mobile as a fully-native GitHub experience on iOS and Android.”

veeralpatel979 7y ago

I tried out the beta version of GitHub's iOS app. I didn't find a single bug in it, and I really enjoyed using it for casually browsing code on my phone. I would highly recommend downloading it if you sometimes take a look at GitHub repos when on your phone, which I think is most programmers. Unfortunately I didn't use it for about fourteen days or something so my beta access was taken away :(

saagarjha 7y ago
I like the GitHub for iOS app, but I've seen a number of things I wish were improved or were outright buggy and they unfortunately didn't seem very receptive of the feedback I sent them :(
- monkey_slap 7y ago
  Feel free to post your feedback here or my email (bio). Sorry if we didn't get back to you on your feedback.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Hi, thanks for reaching out! Here's a couple I've submitted to mobilefeedback@github.com: * Repository names aren't centered to the screen; they're centered to the space left between the bar button items. This might be intentional but is somewhat strange and out-of-place on iOS. * Repositories with "strange" licenses show up with "None" rather than "tap here to see the actual license". * Submodules used to show up as "Something went wrong". Now they show up as "Unable to view file". * Tabs don't actually line up to a character boundary. Since you're here, a couple more that I haven't bothered to get around to submitting: * There's a lot of places that could use search fields. The repositories list, the organizations list, notifications, individual repositories (i.e. code search/file search)… * A view to see a list of commits would be nice. * There's a text-field looking thing on my profile for a status that I cannot actually figure out how to put text into. * It'd be nice if links had the option of opening in SFSafariViewController. * Code viewing is a bit uncomfortable, especially on smaller screens. The font size is a tad large, line spacing is pretty big, and not being able to disable wrapping on demand is somewhat inconvenient. * It'd be nice to be able to review multiple lines at once. I have a bunch more but I can't really recall them at the moment, so I'll keep submitting feedback in-app and hoping that you can get around to taking a look at it. Thanks!

yur3i__ 7y ago

For the free software crowd, fasthub-libre has been around on fdroid for a while

RMPR 7y ago
Interesting, didn't know about that one, how does it compare to Octodroid?
- smichel17 7y ago
  I personally prefer Octodroid. When last I used Fasthub, it felt more ~~polished~~ snazzy but in terms of actually use there was just way too much navigation chrome on the screen. It didn't get out of my way and let me engage with the content. That said, this was a couple years ago and it may have changed.

calpaterson 7y ago

They previously had an app. It seems it was removed from app stores. > At Universe [...] What is universe?

XiZhao 7y ago
Universe is GitHub's annual developer conference. https://githubuniverse.com/ https://githubuniverse.com/

hiram112 7y ago

I'm not all that interested in being able to use Git itself on my phone or even tablet. It's not practical, and there already exists several decent apps for doing so. I'd much rather have Github provide an app that shows me trends and analytics that only they have access to. There are (or were) a few sites and apps that provided a way to see most starred repos by various criteria like all-time vs last week, language, company, search term, etc., but they're hit or miss, and often die when Github changes their API. Not only is it very helpful for my career, but I also personally enjoy seeing what is becoming very popular out there, and what I might be able to use on future projects. I think Github is missing out on some money if they don't end up monetizing their knowledge of what projects are most popular (beyond just stars and forks) - any project lead or architect who is still using sales teams, marketing, etc. to decide on what tools and frameworks to use is going to be left in the dust by the ones who keep up to date on what's trending at Github, especially for higher level projects related to Kubernetes, clustering, DB scaling, etc.

saagarjha 7y ago
The GitHub app doesn't let you use Git from your mobile device; it's more about providing access to the service's "social" features.

ozten 7y ago

Will the mobile web view be improved I noticed that switch to desktop link was broken a few hours ago, perhaps a deployment glitch?

stoksc 7y ago

Trying to follow a link on a readme or something to another file within the github repo always results in “something went wrong” (iOS).

monkey_slap 7y ago
This is probably links within the readme (like #installation in a table of contents). Known problem that we didn't get to fixing, but we're going to fix this soon. Thanks for the report.

ilikehurdles 7y ago

I wish their web experience was improved on mobile. I have no interest in downloading apps of 90% of the websites I visit on my mobile browser. Right now the rare times I need to use github on mobile, I almost always have to switch to the desktop view because their mobile offering is so lacking in critical features.

chatmasta 7y ago
I wish they showed the full readme by default on mobile repository pages. If I'm on my phone, there's a good chance I'm only there to look at the readme, anyway. Just let the readme extend down without needing to expand it. Or at least, don't make expanding it a new page load.
- apple4ever 7y ago
  Agree with you there. Many times I have been frustrated that I have to find and then click the readme button.
- james_s_tayler 7y ago
  So much this.
nixpulvis 7y ago
I just miss the desktop mode link on the bottom of every page. Sure it's harder to use, and I spend most of my time in mobile view, but sometimes I just need to get shit done. I actually sent them a support ticket about this, and this was their reply: "I understand how the previous workflow would be useful, and we apologize for the inconvenience it has caused. However, the good news is that the mobile team is working on releasing iOS and Android GitHub mobile applications early next year, which should resolve some of the limitations of the current mobile site." Like really, just give me the desktop view back ffs.
- jen20 7y ago
  On iOS at least, the "Request Desktop Site" option has been moved under the reader options in the URL bar. It seems to work for me, though is annoying.

makecheck 7y ago

Definitely recommend installing the app by clicking on the link in the blog. The App Store’s search is so terrible that it’s basically impossible to find this by searching for “GitHub”.

AgloeDreams 7y ago
I think it is because it is cached, common on new releases. It will show nice and high after a few hours.

z3t4 7y ago

I use the main site on mobile. My browser, Opera, automatically makes the site "responsive" when I zoom in. The main Github repo view is very well designed.

dochtman 7y ago

I've been using betas for the Android app, but in my experience there's still a lot of paper cuts here. For example, I do quite a few code reviews on my Pixel 2, but what drives me crazy is that the lines in the diffs wrap! On top of that, the code font it uses is pretty large, so wrapping happens often and makes reviewing much harder. The support for per-commit code review (which is only so-so in the desktop web experience) is even harder to use on mobile. The main activity feed from / is nowhere to be seen, even though this is something I use daily on my laptops (long-standing pet peeve, since this is also non-existent in the mobile web view). If you follow a link to particular issue comment (for example, from the bottom of a notification email), the Android app will just land you at the top of the issue. So, having the app is an improvement over the mobile web experience (particularly since the PR review approval button was impossible to hit in the mobile web view without zooming), but IMO there's still a lot to be done here, and I hope they keep executing on it.

PopeDotNinja 7y ago
When I really have to use GitHub on mobile, I usually use the browser in desktop mode.
- nixpulvis 7y ago
  How can I trick it into thinking I'm on desktop. Firefox's (for iOS) "Request Desktop Site" button doesn't work for me.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Doesn’t GitHub itself give you an option to switch to desktop?
  - leegraham 7y ago
    There should be a link in the footer that changes it to the desktop version.
    - matthewhartmans 7y ago

techntoke 7y ago

GitLab needs an official app now too

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

sbr464 7y ago

It let me sign in without 2factor, which is definitely enabled across our org. -edit It does use 2fa, I retried signing out of the browser and app, and then it prompted. It was using the browser token.

aclelland 7y ago
If you were already logged in through your default browser it'll use that to authenticate you through oauth.
- sbr464 7y ago
  Ok, that makes sense if true. It asked for my password, so wasn’t clear.
barkerja 7y ago
I believe that org restriction applies only to third-party application. This app is a first-party app.
- crazysim 7y ago
  That can't be right? Is it? If so, note to self; use first party app's token.

dstaley 7y ago

The single biggest gripe I have with GitHub on Android is that when I click on a GitHub link to a new repo, it asks if I want to open the repo in Chrome or GitHub. This happens for every. single. repo. I think they messed up their URL intent handler such that each repo counts as a different intent. It's super annoying.

AlphaWeaver 7y ago
Android recently rolled out a change which sometimes requires you to update the preference to "Always open *.com links in this app" in the application page in the system settings dialog. This might be what's causing this issue.
- dstaley 7y ago
  Oh my god you're a life saver. Thank you so much for pointing that out!

open-paren 7y ago

Maybe it's ironic, or maybe I am a poor searcher, but I can't find the source code for the app anywhere.

tradertef 7y ago
Same with me. I scrolled down alot but still not there.. Maybe a caching issue.
saagarjha 7y ago
It’s apparently closed-source.
Scarbutt 7y ago
Where does it says it's open source?
- choward 7y ago
  Why not open source it? It's code that runs on my phone, not on their servers. I have no reason to download an app that could just be a well designed web site. It being closed source makes me very suspicious of it. What does GitHub have to hide? It's not like the app is some breakthrough innovation.
  - govg 7y ago
    ...I mean that is true of a lot of apps on the App Store right now, I don't think developers are under any impression that they have to make every app open source.
    - choward 7y ago
      True. This is why I don't install any apps. And you would think a company who's business model revolves around open source would be more likely to open source their app.
      - 7y ago

msh 7y ago

Hmm does not really seem to be a git client, more the social fluff. I guess working copy is still the best git client for ios.

robenkleene 7y ago
I find GitHub's app strategy incredibly bizarre: On the desktop, where there are tons of git clients already (not to mention the command line) GitHub's app is just another git client. Here I'd expect them to emphasize their social features because that's what would differentiate it from other git clients, and it's what differentiates their entire product from other git hosts. Then on mobile, where there's very little git client competition, pretty much just Working Copy, they don't make a git client, and instead emphasize the social features...
- cormacrelf 7y ago
  Sounds right to me? You wouldn’t edit code on your phone. Git client on an iPad is barely usable to edit anything, just give up and use ssh. On a desktop, the browser already has the social features, and it would be a waste of your employees to constantly replicate work to the desktop client. GitHub isn’t competing against Working Copy, or SourceTree. It’s competing against GitLab etc. So on desktop, they aimed to make an oversimplified beginner’s git client, to encourage beginners to use GitHub over alternatives. On mobile I suspect it was just too hard to build what people needed as a web app. Some people want push, which iOS web apps can’t do. May as well have it do a bunch of other things people like to do from their phone, and beat web with native controls.
  - robenkleene 7y ago
    Your point about why the GitHub is about the social features on mobile is spot on to me. But the point about the desktop client I don't really follow, and that's my issue with GitHub's app product strategy: I think both apps should be about the social features. I don't understand why a beginner's git client is important (is that really what GitHub Desktop is supposed to be?). And I'm not sure what this means: "it would be a waste of your employees to constantly replicate work to the desktop client"? I want a social GitHub Desktop client because I want the better integration with my desktop, e.g., I want notifications for PR reviews and comments on issues, and I want to be able to jump immediately to the actual source code file being commented on in my local copy of the source. It seems like these are similar benefits to why Slack has a desktop app for example. And these are the types of integrations that would further differentiate GitHub from other git hosts.

maxk42 7y ago

I'm having trouble understanding the use case here. If someone submits a pull request, don't I have to review that in a dev environment? Same for downloading / trying out a project. What is the utility of having access via mobile?

robmccoll 7y ago
For a small change set with CI that runs automatically against PRs for both the branch and the result of the merge, I think this is a useful and safe option to quickly review something. Similarly if you do a lot of your project management through GitHub, having the ability to file and track issues from your phone is nice.

AgloeDreams 7y ago

Really great, has push notifications all that. I just wish I got a push notification...for when I'm assigned to review a PR. Really annoying.

monkey_slap 7y ago
Thanks for this feedback, giving people more options for push notifications is on our roadmap! Including letting you set schedules for when you can receive them.
- AgloeDreams 7y ago
  That right there is killer. Thanks!

sysashi 7y ago

I'm really curious why would you need a special app to view text? Why browser is not sufficient enough for that use?

ducaale 7y ago
Viewing large files such as this one https://github.com/replit/play/blob/master/play/play.py https://github.com/replit/play/blob/master/play/play.py crash my feeble galaxy note8. Viewing the same file on this app does not cause issues so that is one use case I guess?
- sysashi 7y ago
  Seems like that, yeah. But again, I believe your issue is related to some non-optimized content for mobile. Perhaps the thing that crashes is syntax highlighting script, whereas on mobile they have something native. (just a guess..)

genieyclo 7y ago

Thanks! Any plans for GitHub Enterprise support?

monkey_slap 7y ago
The app supports Enterprise Cloud today, and Enterprise Server is on the roadmap!
- genieyclo 7y ago
  can’t wait

rvz 7y ago

It appears that Facebook for programmers now has an official app which has finally surfaced on the App Stores. However, this may be terrible news for other third-party apps since Apple, Microsoft and Github can work together to forcibly shut down any unauthorised clients with legal action due to this release.

saagarjha 7y ago
How?
- rvz 7y ago
  Well, I see no third party apps for having a full client for Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook or Discord at least on the iOS App Store due to this rule [0], but I certainly won't be surprised if they do the same for Google Play if they succeed on the App Store with Apple. GitHub can easily file a complaint and Apple will happily remove any infringing app off of the App Store. [0] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#intellectual-property https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#int...
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    > If your app uses, accesses, monetizes access to, or displays content from a third-party service, ensure that you are specifically permitted to do so under the service’s terms of use. GitHub provides an API to access all of these things.
    - rvz 7y ago
      True, but the same was said for Instagram and Twitter. They both still have a public API for developers and then cracked down on the third-party apps and clients on the App Store with a policy change. Sure, developers can still use these public APIs as long as they don't release an app that is a full clone of their official apps. If Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Discord can draw the line on third-party clones, with the release of the official GitHub apps, they can also do this too.

Funes- 7y ago

Could someone explain to me why would anyone use GitHub on their phones rather than on a desktop computer? I can't seem to come up with a situation in which I'd reasonably need to interrupt anything I'm doing in order to check GitHub on my phone.

apoggi419 7y ago
I find that it's nice to review pull requests or just browse through repositories/code on your phone if you don't have access to your laptop.
baddox 7y ago
Let’s set aside the word “need” and just go with “want.” Sometimes I want to use GitHub on my phone because I’m in bed and want to read over some code, or I’m on the bus to work in the morning and I want to get a head start on a PR a coworker sent me. I don’t really understand why GitHub is a crazier thing to do on one’s phone than, well, anything else really.
thih9 7y ago
> Could someone explain to me why would someone use GitHub on their phones rather than on a desktop computer? I think I don't understand the question; how is github's app different than e.g. airbnb's?
- picozeta 7y ago
  How is it not totally different? People use Airbnb to rent apartments and people use GitHub to develop and share source code for software.
  - thih9 7y ago
    Let me be more precise: "how is github's app [existence] different than e.g. airbnb's?". The grandparent asked a question, my point is that you could replace "github" with any other company that keeps both a web app and a mobile app: > > Could someone explain to me why would someone use GitHub on their phones rather than on a desktop computer?

branon 7y ago

I use FastHub[0] (also the fork called FastHub-Libre[1]) and don't intend to switch away anytime soon. Is Microsoft's new app for GitHub free software, or even open-source software? If not, this is laughably ironic. [0] https://github.com/k0shk0sh/FastHub https://github.com/k0shk0sh/FastHub [1] https://github.com/thermatk/FastHub-Libre https://github.com/thermatk/FastHub-Libre

richardwhiuk 7y ago
How? GitHub itself isn't open-source.
tracker1 7y ago
Not really ironic in either way... Github's features themselves are not open-source, and not sure if their desktop apps are open either. I try not to do too much on my phone regarding Github, I feel like anything with lots of what should be preformatted text on a phone is just horrible in general.

bnycum 7y ago

My only wish is for multiple account support, figured that would be a feature. I have a personal and work account.

windthrown 7y ago

I can't find the source code. Is this app not open-source and hosted on Github?

sdan 7y ago
I'm fairly sure a good chunk of Github isn't open sourced either, no?
- windthrown 7y ago
  You appear to be correct. I had never even thought to check and just assumed that it was!
saagarjha 7y ago
No, it’s closed source.
- nerder92 7y ago
  Can't understand why, since is only the frontend :(
RMPR 7y ago
You can sense the irony there.
- Ohn0 7y ago
  This is why I use GitLab
  - RMPR 7y ago
    I second this, considering the fact that the two platforms have an equivalent feature set, there's also Drew Devault's platform: source hut (I think) which seems very good.

AndyKelley 7y ago

I can't recommend Octodroid enough. Been using it for years, and it already does all this stuff. It's easily the most well designed and engineered app on my phone. I'm not even going to bother checking out this official app because Octodroid is perfect.

RMPR 7y ago
Not to mention that it's also open source and available on F-Droid, so not bothering with managing apk manually for those who don't use Playstore.

cryptonector 7y ago

I can't find it on the Apple app store among the see of other GitHub apps. I had to visit HN, find this story, and click the link to the app.

rcarmo 7y ago
Go to the post and click on the direct link, the catalogue front-ends aren't synced yet.

rcarmo 7y ago

Nice. At least in a first glance, and on the iPad.

hprotagonist 7y ago

https://workingcopy.app https://workingcopy.app is my go-to here. Strongly recommended. And the author responds to emails all the time.

niedzielski 7y ago

Interesting! I was thinking that GitHub had moved away from native mobile apps. Source code for the old GitHub Android native app: https://github.com/github/android https://github.com/github/android

Quarrelsome 7y ago

As someone that works for an organisation that develops almost 100% desktop applications and desktop form-factor web applications, I've been somewhat terrified of the new entrants into the workforce that started on phones as opposed to computers. It seems like nobody is taking their existence and eventual assumption of purchasing decision making powers seriously and I figure we'll suffer in the long-term as an organisation because of this. I had been trying to tell myself that people still "sit down at a desktop to do work" to make myself feel better about our inaction over this it but that github is spending on mobile form factor makes me feel like I'm lying to myself about that. What are people's general takes on this? I sway towards "in twenty years it will start to be a massive deal" but I struggle to find a convincing platform to soapbox on this to the organisation at large.

mscasts 7y ago
My take is that most companies don't need a native app unless they're specifically targeting mobile users and doesn't have a need for desktop users. So you're better off generally to make the app a web app. If that doesn't work yet, are you sure about that? With web assembly and some new browser apis it's really very few apps left that actually need the native experience. Sure if you build apps for cars, planes or something like that I understand that you want the native experience. But there is also tons of "native with an asterisk" tools like Xamarin and React Native for example. Sure the app may be a bit larger but do users really care? With those kind of technologies you can build native for all platforms easily. The choice really is up to the developers and there is lots of choices nowadays, thankfully.
- Quarrelsome 7y ago
  A lot of this is legacy which is why making the argument for change is one about expense. Its about justifying the expense by selling the hot path of the use-case of using technical applications on a phone. Everyone is sunk-cost fallacy here over the potential of mobile use-cases, they're dismissed as a use-case. I vaguely bought into the idea for a while and now github are like: > Review PRs and look at code on a mobile form factor and now I'm like: > oh, so that use-case is a thing? I'm terrified some CTO in twenty years time of an org we want to sell it to will instantly shitcan our offering because it doesn't support mobile use-cases. Because mobile is their culture and the reason we don't value it today is _only_ because mobile isn't the culture we grew up with.

brenden2 7y ago

I'm not installing a stupid app so Microsoft can collect data on me. Please just make the website continue to work properly in a mobile browser.

bionoid 7y ago
> I'm not installing a stupid app so Microsoft can collect data on me. This is going far off topic, but I am currently consulting with a client that requested using Visual Studio Community Edition [2019] for the project. I was a month into development, when all of a sudden one morning, it was no longer possible to start Visual Studio. Why? Because I had not connected it to my Microsoft account, of course... I wonder how people put up with this..
- MuffinFlavored 7y ago
  > I wonder how people put up with this.. The same way hundreds of thousands of people (if not millions) use GitHub Desktop connected to their GitHub accounts?
  - bionoid 7y ago
    Well in that case you are using a cloud-based service, it makes sense that you have to authenticate. But I was writing and building C++ code just fine locally, and I could have continued doing that if it wasn't for the dark pattern.
- otterlicious 7y ago
  You can pay for Visual Studio with money if you don't want to pay for it with your data. That's more than you can say for a lot of things...

pdeuchler 7y ago

Crazy to me that they've released this without a way for organizations to disable using it with private repos... in no way shape or form do I want engineers using this app to access company IP on their personal phones.

sdtransier 7y ago
Can they not already just sign into the website on their personal phones?
jkirsteins 7y ago
Why are you against them using an app for something they are authorized doing in a browser?

peterallport 7y ago

Been looking forward to this day for a long time! Congrats to the GitHub iOS team on a job well done on this first release!

roflchoppa 7y ago

Finally can do reviews on the loo.

gdevenyi 7y ago

Compared to octodroid this is missing my follow feed projects and people I follow.

nojvek 7y ago

I don’t understand why this couldn’t be a mobile site. Usually native mobile apps are a subset of the desktop site. Many lag in features and the apps get abandoned since their teams get re-orged. GitHub, you could have shown the world what a truly responsive and progressive website GitHub is.

tophattom 7y ago

I'm not able to log in on Android. Clicking "Sign in" opens browser (Firefox Preview in my case) where I get the standard GitHub login flow with 2FA. But after logging in it goes back to app and the Sign in button is still there and nothing happens.

luisehk 7y ago

I understand some folks may find this helpful but I'd rather not normalize working from my phone.

m0zg 7y ago

Needs multiple account support IMO. A lot of us have a separate "work" and "personal" accounts.

dang 7y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21527268 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21527268

AzzieElbab 7y ago

Very cool. Android browsers been freezing/hanging with code and markdown pages

elpakal 7y ago

Sweet! I was at universe when this was announced and have been using the iOS Testflight releases. Good to see the progress and congrats to the team. Now... any plans to open source these repos?!

rahimnathwani 7y ago

I'm not able to log in on Android. This is what I did: 1. click the install button in Google Play the app 2. open chrome and continue browsing HN 3. come across an HN post that's hosted on GitHub, and click on it 4. When prompted, tell Android that I always want to open GitHub links in the GitHub app 5. When the app opens, tap the sign in button Expected: a form to enter my username Actual: app disappears and I'm back at the launcher Tried this to fix it: - force quit the app - clear storage and cache Didn't work. What I guess is happening: GitHub app is trying to redirect me to the system browser to log in, but Android intercepts the link as it's on the GitHub.com domain, so should be opened by the GitHub app. But around that time, the GitHub app decides it wants to background itself and wait to be reopened by an intent, once the browser completes the auth process. Just a guess.

gullevek 7y ago
On iOS I have the same issue. When I click on the "Sign In" black button it just reloads the app. I tried it on Wi-Fi and normal mobile network.

apatheticonion 7y ago

Great work but I would have much rather this been a progressive web application (installable web application).

laacz 7y ago

The thing is. I was not able to find the app in Appstore when searching for "github". Had to linked page on device, then click on link there.

pixel_fcker 7y ago

Installed it on iOS to try it out. Soon after, browsing HN on Safari I click on a link to an interesting-looking repo, which switches me to the GitHub app and shows me the raw text of the readme.md. Uninstalled it straight away.

bitten 7y ago
What's the problem with that, or what do you expect? GitHub mobile web truncates the README so you'd have to click twice (which always annoyed me about GitHub mobile web!). Is there not a way to configure the deep links?
- pixel_fcker 7y ago
  I would expect it to show me the readme rendered, same as visiting it in a browser does. There didn’t appear to be a way to show it rendered at all either. Which is a massive problem if it’s going to hijack my browser so I cannot see it rendered at all from my mobile.

thanksforfish 7y ago

I'm trying this out for code review on public transit. My use case is that I batch a few small code reviews for the end of the day, and check on the status of some larger reviews that doing early reviews or working through edits. I've previously been using the website on a mobile web browser, but it's not mobile optimized so touch points are fiddly, views need to be adjusted, long lines are hard to read, and I need to be wary about losing connection when adding a comment. Complex reviews sometimes take review of code in other files, jumping back and forth, so the mobile experience is lacking. First impression is that the contrast for the red/green highlights seems a little low. I may just not be used to the color scheme though.