Launching today
Hacker News for macOS
A native macOS client for Hacker News, built with SwiftUI
79 followers
A native macOS client for Hacker News, built with SwiftUI
79 followers
A native macOS desktop client for Hacker News that goes beyond the website. Browse stories in a visual grid with article thumbnails, read articles side-by-side with comment threads, and use reader mode to focus on content. Built entirely with SwiftUI for a fast, native experience with full dark mode support, 15+ keyboard shortcuts, built-in ad blocking, and adjustable text scaling. Log in with your HN account to bookmark stories, hide items, and sync across sessions. Free and open-source.
Hacker News for macOS
@ironsidexxvi Hi Dylan. Congrats on your launch! Did you face any macOS‑specific design challenges like menus, touchpad gestures, windowing?
Hacker News for macOS
@kimberly_ross Hey there! Getting macOS code signing and notarization working in CI was honestly the hardest part of this project. If anyone is distributing a macOS app outside the App Store via GitHub Actions, I'm happy to answer questions — the workflow is fully open source.
Love that you open-sourced this, Dylan. The visual grid with Open Graph thumbnails is such an obvious improvement over the default HN wall of text — surprised nobody built this sooner. The side-by-side article + comments view is the feature I'd use most. Half the value of HN is the discussion, but switching between the article and the comment thread in a browser is clunky. Having them next to each other is the right UX. Quick question — what made you choose SwiftUI over something cross-platform? Was it purely about getting that native macOS feel, or were there specific SwiftUI features that made the visual grid easier to build?
Hacker News for macOS
@roman_builder Hey, thanks for the kind message! A couple weeks ago when I was browsing hacker news I got the idea that I could make my own native app with a much better experience. At first it was just going to be for my own personal use and I enjoy making Swift apps so I spun this up. I guess I figured it would also be an easy port to IOS so Swift would be a good option. After making it, I figured others might enjoy the app as well so I open sourced it.
The HN website is known to be "minimal", to say the least. Why might that be the case for so long, when they clearly have the ability to make it look more modern? Maybe for more classic look? idk but I am very relieved to have a more modern HN.
Is this just me??
Hacker News for macOS
@peterz_shu
That’s a good question. I don’t think they’ve changed the front end once from the time they released hacker news in 2007.