What it does
The app is the proof. Here it is.
Threads you can actually traverse
Deep HN threads stop being spelunking. Collapse any subtree, or use the Quick Collapse gesture to fold a branch without hunting for its root. The Comment Jumper hops you between top-level comments, so a 400-comment thread reads like a table of contents.
Vote and reply inline once you are signed in. Tap any username for their full comment history.
All of HN, greppable
Full-text search across every story ever posted, sortable by relevance or date. The search field floats at your thumb, results look exactly like a feed, and tapping through lands you in the same fast native views as everything else.
Queries go straight to hn.algolia.com. No middleman, nothing logged by us.
Sign in. Vote, reply, submit, favorite.
Jacobian is a full read and write client. Sign in with your HN account and everything works: voting, replying, submitting stories, favoriting. An Activity view shows any user's comment history, including yours.
Your credentials live in the iOS Keychain on your device and are sent to exactly one place: news.ycombinator.com. The privacy page is short because there is nothing to disclose.
#000000, on purpose
The dark theme is pure black, built for OLED: pixels off, text on. The light theme is just as considered. Use either, or follow the system and let the app flip with your day.
Five app icons ship in the beta: the ∂ default, Classic, True Black, Moon, and a Hacker News tribute. Pick your allegiance.
The rest of the matrix
Small things, ∂one properly
Every row below is in the current beta. No roadmap padding, no coming-soon asterisks.
- Reader Mode
- Articles stripped to clean, readable text.
- Split View
- Two-pane layout on wider screens: feed on the left, story on the right.
- Dynamic Type
- Follows your system text size, plus an in-app control when you want the app different from the OS.
- Deep links
jacobian://item/IDand news.ycombinator.com item URLs open in-app.- Localization
- English, German, and Arabic, with full right-to-left support.
- State restoration
- Reopen exactly where you left off, mid-thread included.
- Shake to report
- Found a beta bug? Shake the phone, describe it, send it.
- Price
- Free during the beta. A tip jar in the app, if you insist.