Hacker News iOS clients
My dream Hacker News (HN) client for iOS would look like Apollo, but work for HN instead of Reddit. Apollo has a seamless, iOS native design that makes it easy to navigate between posts and comment trees.
I think I’ve downloaded all of the iOS HN clients on the App Store. Many barely work (see “skippable”), but some would be excellent with a little polish (see “acceptable”).
acceptable
- Octal — Nice design. Non-native feel. Easy to collapse comments.
- HACK for Hacker News Developer — Design is complicated with too many icons. Typography is too large.
- Starling for HN — Does everything a basic HN client needs. Collapsing comments isn’t quick.
skippable
- Flamingo Reader — Aggregator of tech news, not an HN client.
- Hacked News — Non-native UI. Poor UX.
- Hacked.It - Tech News Reader — Non-native UI.
- Hacker Buzz — Non-native UI. Poor UX.
- Hacker Feed — Poor touch targets.
- Hacker News - Experiment — No support for viewing comments.
- Hacker News - Latest in Tech — Beautiful design. Customizable, but layout doesn’t look right when elements are disabled. Doesn’t support commenting. This could be the best client with more polish.
- Hacker News - Social News — Non-native UI. Poor UX.
- Hacker News (Y) — Designed for iPhone 4.
- Hacker News Dark Reader — No support for viewing comments.
- Hacker News Redux — Designed for iPhone 4.
- Hacker News Zero — Non-native UI. Poor UX.
- HackerNews HN Tech News & Jobs — Non-native UI. Contains advertisements.
- Hackers for Hacker News — Comments collapse nicely. Color scheme gives an unpolished feel. Doesn’t support commenting.
- Hacki for Hacker News — Non-native UI. Poor UX.
- hn - Hacker News Client — Poor UX.
- HN Pro — Poor UX.
- HN Reader - Hacker News Reader — Designed for iPhone 4.
- HN: Hacker News Reader — No support for viewing comments. Contains advertisements.
- Porter - Developer News — Non-native UI.
- Simple Reader for Hacker News — Crashes on launch.
- Y Hourly - a free Hacker News app for news.ycombinator.com — Crashes on launch.