Show HN: Ember, a native iOS Hacker News reader I built around accessibility

gavinmckenzie | a day ago

Well done. As a colour blind person (and iOS developer) I am thrilled anytime an app doesn’t rely on colour cues alone. I’ve used Hack and Octal but I am going to give your app a try.

ios-contractor | a day ago

Looks great. Does it support pinch zoom like webpage hn does

UqWBcuFx6NV4r | 23 hours ago

Needing to resort to pinch and zoom for everything is an indicator of bad accessibility. HN “supporting” pinch and zoom is more like… HN not being responsive and/or being good about dynamic text size.

newdee | a day ago

Looks great, do you plan on publishing to the AppStore?

[OP] sylwester | a day ago

If it is possible and Apple accepts the app.

roger_ | a day ago

Any chance of HN getting angry about this, à la Reddit?

rkagerer | a day ago

Ok. I don't need or want this.

Doesn't mean others can't find it useful. e.g. I bet some portion of users would appreciate Dark mode without resorting to CSS tweaks. /rant

altairprime | a day ago

(Perhaps they meant as in Is This At Risk of the Apollo Apocalypse rather than as in behaving more like Reddit?)

UqWBcuFx6NV4r | 23 hours ago

* HN reader apps have existed forever.

* There is a public API.

^ The incentives for “getting angry” aren’t there, like they were for Reddit.

Think critically.

charrondev | a day ago

I love to see an open source implementation.

I’ve been using [Octal](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/octal-for-hacker-news/id130888...) for a while now but it’s not open source.

Would you be opposed to a pull request adding login/posting support? I think the way it works in Octal is webview for login, snatching the cookies out of the webview, then using the same posting endpoints as the website with the cookie.

shelled | a day ago

HN is quite nice inside a desktop browser, but mobile browsers are a different story altogether. But even there, it fares slightly better than old.reddit.com. So looks like I should dust off that xcode.

Cider9986 | a day ago

I disagree it works great in Vanadium.

_dharmik_ | a day ago

Are you planning to release Android version as well ?

[OP] sylwester | 14 hours ago

I will check if it is possible to build for Android.

ofcrpls | a day ago

I've been using Octal on iOS and https://github.com/IronsideXXVI/Hacker-News on Mac that was showcased here 4 months ago.

Got to give you kudos for the Accessibility enablement though - while some of it is baked-in support, it’s worth appreciating your work in whittling down whatever else can be supported.

Here is a comparison for the two on Mac, if you're interested. https://gq6o9uxicyzuw8es6qxe78bnml9wc3re.pastehtml.dev/#core

wittjeff | 7 hours ago

I'm curious if you used a particular tool for this comparison or a LLM. I ask because (layered irony) I'm making a general tool for multi-dimensional item comparisons, using Claude to build the tool (but not the comparisons, not that I mind).

kamyarg | a day ago

Could not find the appstore link, is it published there?

lemming | a day ago

One thing that would be useful in the readme is instructions on how to install the built app on a phone, for those of us who don’t do iOS development.

cadamsdotcom | a day ago

Looks great!

It seems you’re nervous about getting permission to show what you made to the world from Apple.

May I suggest you encourage people who want to use the app to get their own subscription and build and install it themselves, or consider AltStore/SideStore. Or go via TestFlight with your own monetization built in.

No one should need permission to ship from a trillion dollar company.

UqWBcuFx6NV4r | 23 hours ago

This is a long bow to draw just for an excuse to get on your soapbox about Apple, especially talking to someone who has definitely heard it all before and has definitely formed their own view on this particular topic (and doesn’t need proselytising from you).

cadamsdotcom | 22 hours ago

Only offering ideas, people are free to ignore them.

You never know - OP might not have thought of these options.

krageon | 16 hours ago

I thought it was interesting to read. It had some information I didn't have before.

pi-victor | a day ago

i've been using hackfeed, it does the job.

make this available on testflight, this looks great, would love to daily drive it.

+1 for the accessibility features, great job!

ethanhq | 21 hours ago

The information comes from HN; would there be a risk of copyright infringement if the product were listed on the App Store?

Calgaryp | 10 hours ago

Just starred it on github ;) Looks very good !

msephton | 6 hours ago

I'm posting this from a test feature I'm working on for your app: HN login, comments, replies, edit, etc.

I've also filed some smaller PRs.