I know this gets asked all the time, but to me, the more the question is asked, the more meaningful the lack of response is.<p>Why isn't HN updated for viewing on a mobile?<p>- I would wager a vast number of users use their mobile to view the site (or at least want to)
- The change required is tiny; I'm sure even I'm this thread someone will be able to propose the optimal change to make.
- Varied screen sizes are not going to go away so the change needs to be made at some point
- It seems fundamentally against the ethos of a company like YC to not adapt to the changing needs of their user base<p>I'm sure there are more, but I think that is enough.<p>Can someome explain to me (and the others asking) why this hasn't already been done and, more importantly if this will ever happen?
Yes, it will happen. Yes, we're working on it. The reasons it's taking so long are: (1) the change required is not tiny; and (2) everyone working on it has many other things to do, most of which are more pressing.<p>That doesn't make it a low priority (it's a high priority), but it means we have to do it as a background process.
> <i>The change required is tiny; I'm sure even I'm this thread someone will be able to propose the optimal change to make. </i><p>Apparently, it's not tiny, which was the response that came up the last time.<p>...the last time was about two years ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7330107" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7330107</a><p>They did roll out a tiny mobile fix in March: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9206427" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9206427</a>
Maybe, YC is trying to teach you something about product building. Something like: "we don't make our site mobile friendly because the content is so good that people still use it on their phone even if they have to zoom in a little. The day when people stop coming to hacker news or apply to YC because it's not mobile friendly, then we might do something about it. Otherwise it's just a waste of time and money for us." In other words: don't rush into building everything people ask you to do, they might not really need it.<p>It's probably not what they intend to do... But still worth thinking about ;)
In the meanwhile, this is super mobile and tablet-friendly: <a href="http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/" rel="nofollow">http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/</a> I've been using it for more than a year now and I nearly never visit it Hacker News directly on mobile.
I use <a href="http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/" rel="nofollow">http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/</a><p>Some time ago Hackernews was mobile ready for a short time, there were a lot of complaints (I can't find the thread at the moment). I guess the HN philosophy is to keep it as basic and simple as possible and leave the rest to 3rd parties.
I miss easy navigation features of a desktop browser when opening HN website in mobile browsers.<p>My flow is - I go through the submissions in a page, and when I like one, most of the time I open the story and its comments page both - in separate tabs. I read the story first and the switch to the next tab to read the comments. When I have completed all the tabs, I go to the next HN page. In mobile it's pretty cumbersome to navigate among tabs.<p>I seldom use the mobile site, I find the HN reader app by premii[1] the best suited for me.<p>[1] <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.premii.hn" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.premii.hn</a>
<a href="http://ihackernews.com/" rel="nofollow">http://ihackernews.com/</a> is a suitable alternative that's mobile friendly.
Anytime they try to make changes there are hundreds of complaints about those changes.<p>Many people on mobile only want a bit more separation between the vote buttons. That would make accidental downvotes harder, and would encourage upvoting.<p>Personally, I'd like text that was a bit larger and text that reflowed, but I know other people might hate that.
I wonder if mobile web is really ready. I think on mobile, people prefer the fullness that comes with native apps, including UI features like back/undo on Android, which is maybe why 37 Signals, once a staunch advocate of mobile web apps, decided to release native versions of their app after a few years. In default mobile browsers, the back button is not the same thing as "undo" in Android.
One change that could be made is to wrap very long unbroken lines.<p>Visiting /comments when someone has left a post with a very long unbroken line will break the site.<p>Browsers are oddly broken for mobile. Here's what text entry looks like on Chrome for iOS - <a href="http://imgur.com/gjLdS6A" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/gjLdS6A</a>
The change should be done in the browser. It's just dumb that we don't have reflow in Firefox mobile. Chrome seems to do it fine (but lack of adblock makes it my non default browser).<p>News.yc is a simple, easy site. Browsers should just work on it.
I'm not sure about HN's reason, but I've found the Boreal app for iOS to be a great responsive solution for reading HN. The dev's are responsive and their app has me here more often now because of it.
Hacker News(YC) is a fully featured free app for iOS. It allows for commenting, upvoting and submitting news. Not sure about Android though.
Not sure what %age of junta use the web version on mobile?
There is a ton of HN apps on Android, but all I want is the ability to post comments, post stories, and possibly support the Android share API so I can just send URLs to HN directly from Chrome.
I have installed UC Browser on my android just for HN. Double tap for zoom and the text adjusts to the width.<p>Older versions of android stock browser used to act this way, but latest chrome on android does not.
There's a few mobile-friendly versions of Hacker News, using the API. I prefer <a href="http://hn.premii.com" rel="nofollow">http://hn.premii.com</a>
Thanks for the boreal reference. Finally an app that can actually login an post comments. Beautiful app so far. Though I can't find the reply to comment option.
I asked a long time ago about open-sourcing the front-end, and was brushed off. It'd get done a lot faster if you allowed experienced users to help.