# Octal for Hacker News — Social developer & tech news

> Social developer and tech news aggregator with community engagement features. (iPhone/iPad app by Daniel Wu.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/octal-for-hacker-news/id1308885491 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Daniel Wu](https://appshunter.io/developer/1308885370)
- Category: News, Lifestyle
- Price: Free with in-app purchases
- Rating: 4.80/5 from 2,813 App Store ratings · 169 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 18.0 · 8 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2017-11-26
- Data updated: 2026-08-28
- Monetization: free
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/octal-for-hacker-news/id1308885491/reviews.md

## What is Octal for Hacker News?

Octal is your go-to news feed for breaking tech news, putting the biggest stories of the day with engaging discussion right in the palm of your hand.

Beautifully designed for both iPhone and iPad, Octal focuses on what you care most about: native design, speed, and usability. It's the modern, full-featured Hacker News app you've been looking for.

You'll find an unparalleled, community-powered source of stories about anything ranging from self-driving cars to the latest Apple gadgets. Octal has all the features you need, including the ability to vote on stories, submit posts, add comments, and manage favorites. Best of all, it's free of all that annoying stuff, like ads, subscriptions, and tracking. If you want to keep up to date with the latest popular and trending tech headlines, Octal is made for you.

• NEWS FOR NERDS: Read and share the most important stories in the tech world, submitted and voted on by Hacker News users. Stories are constantly changing, and often focus on areas like programming, startups, technology industry and companies (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Uber, etc.), and key technology categories such as mobile, computers, internet, design, coding, and security.

• ENGAGE AND VOTE: Vote on stories and comments you like and dislike, and report stories with objectionable content. Found something you need to read later? Add it to your favorites!

• DISCUSS THE NEWS: Read and engage with stories by viewing their discussions with a fast, fully-threaded, collapsible, buttery smooth comments experience. Add your own comments. If you're a fast reader, you can instantly jump to the next top-level comment thread with a single tap.

• SUBMIT LINKS: Got a cool story or news link to share to Hacker News? Submit new posts directly in the app. You can also share links directly to Octal to quickly submit them.

• SEARCH STORIES: Search Hacker News stories and sort search results by relevance or date.

• JOIN THE COMMUNITY: Log in to Hacker News to easily track your karma, activity and favorites. Browse user profiles, including their karma, about, activity, and favorites.

• THEMEABLE: Total Dark Mode support. Turn on 'True Black' to use a pure RGB #000 background color - perfect for devices with OLED displays.

• CUSTOMIZE YOUR NEWS FEED: Tap or swipe between story filters such as 'Top Stories', 'Threads', 'Ask HN', 'Show HN', 'Best Stories', 'New Stories', and 'Jobs'.

• ACCESSIBLE: Increase or decrease the text size to one that's comfortable for you, or enable 'Dynamic Type' to use the system's 'Larger Text' font size. And VoiceOver is fully supported!

• DEEP LINK SUPPORT: You can open Hacker News links in Octal by sharing them to Octal. You can also use apps like 'Opener'. Most Hacker News links starting with 'octal://' are supported!

• READY FOR ANY SCREEN: Octal looks great on iPads with an optional 2-pane interface. Say goodbye to wasted screen real estate.

• WEB BROWSER SUPPORT: Open links in your web browser of choice.

• AD-FREE, PRIVACY AWARE: No ads, no subscriptions, and no tracking.

ABOUT OCTAL PREMIUM:
To unlock advanced features, including the ability to submit posts, add comments, manage favorites, switch themes, change app icons, use custom gestures, and more, you can buy Octal Premium via an In-App Purchase. Octal Premium is a one-time payment and there is no subscription. Purchases support the development of Octal, which is developed solely by me!

ABOUT HACKER NEWS:
Hacker News is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship. It is run by Paul Graham's investment fund and startup incubator, Y Combinator. In general, its content can be submitted is defined as "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity". You can think of Hacker News as reddit for tech. It's the go-to news aggregator for tech.

SUPPORT:
Found a bug or have a feature request? Create an Issue on Github, or e-mail me: https://github.com/dangwu/Octal/issues

## Key features

- Vote on stories and comments
- Submit new posts
- Engage in threaded discussions
- Search Hacker News stories
- Manage favorites
- Customizable news feed filters
- Dark Mode support

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: Free.

**One-time purchases**

| Purchase | Price | Type |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Premium | $5.99 | one-time |
| Kind Tip | $1.99 | one-time |
| Generous Tip | $4.99 | one-time |
| Extraordinary Tip | $9.99 | one-time |


## What do users think of Octal for Hacker News?

Overall sentiment: positive

**Pros**

- 🚀 Fantastic app
- 👍 Convenient to use
- 👍 Good UX/UI
- 👍 Elegant, intuitive client
- 👍 Beautifully executed
- 👍 Wonderful app
- 👍 Masterpiece
- 👍 Very nice HN reader
- 👍 Best HN app
- 👍 Excellent HN client
- 👍 Phenomenal app
- 👍 Elegant!
- 👍 Excellent User Interface!
- 👍 Very nice app
- 👍 Amazing app
- 👍 Best HN reader
- 👍 By far the best HN reader!

**Cons**

- 🐛 Can't even log in my YC account
- 🐛 Occasional refresh issues
- 🐛 Asking for network info permission
- 🐛 Unreliable
- 🐛 Ads
- 🐛 X-Callback-URL not working
- 🐛 Favorites are broken
- 🐛 Commenting and voting broken
- 🐛 Rotation bug
- 🐛 Scrolling on comments is a bit laggy
- 🐛 Forced two pane layout
- 🐛 Doesn't work when using a tracking blocker

**Commonly reported bugs**

- Login and likes broken on iOS 16.0
- Restore purchase not working
- App icon doesn't change
- Editing a comment works but gives an error
- Can't collapse comments
- Upvoting fails very often
- Refreshing comments doesn't load new comments
- Messes up Screen time

**Most requested features**

- Dark mode option
- Ability to browse history and upvoted stories
- Markdown highlighting for comments
- Ability to select text when tap anywhere to collapse comment is enabled
- Downvote functionality
- Ability to export bookmarks/favorites
- Swipe to collapse whole comment branch
- Larger upvote button
- Ability to see points on own comments
- Swipe to go back
- Paginated behavior instead of infinite scrolling
- Ability to filter by post types (Show HN, Ask HN, etc.)
- Linking back to upvoted comments
- Auto night mode
- Larger font size options
- Ability to see read news in grey
- Telegram Night Blue color scheme for dark mode
- Bookmark/offline support

## Recent user reviews (10 of 169)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/octal-for-hacker-news/id1308885491/reviews.md

### 3/5 — Best client I have used so far

*2026-07-30, version 5.1.0*

The Liquid Glass update is mostly great with one minor issue: the In-App web view now opens from the bottom, making the swipe back gesture no longer possible. A switch to change to the old behavior would be appreciated as swiping down from the top isn’t as easy.

### 4/5 — Good but missing some web features

*2026-07-28, version 5.1.0*

Good but missing fading comment text based on rep

### 4/5 — So simple, so (nearly) perfect.

*2026-07-09, version 5.1.0*

Love the app, have been using it for years.

However, a recent update (accidentally?) removed the "collapse root" feature from the context menu.

Pretty please bring that small affordance back.

### 5/5 — Good

*2026-07-04*

Its pretty good

**Developer response:** This has been fixed with 5.1.0. Thanks for the feedback!

### 4/5 — Excellent overall, but search needs work

*2026-07-03, version 5.1.0*

The UI is well designed, intuitive, attractive. It’s my preferred way to read HN.
But I use the search a lot, and it’s very primitive. I typically have to switch to my desktop’s browser to find anything.
The number one thing missing is a date filter. Preferably that allows selecting start/end dates, but even just a dropdown with common ranges would suffice.

HN has a lot of content about topics that move quickly, so I often want to see results from the last X time period. But sort by date, and only see bad submissions that never got traction. Sort by relevance and see popular submissions from 12 years ago. And a hard cap on number of results, so I can’t dig deeper even if I wanted to. It leaves much to be desired.

### 1/5 — Terrible design update

*2026-07-03, version 5.0.0*

Why ruin UX for everyone and make the website open with half an inch less screen space? This is ridiculous.

### 1/5 — Last update not great

*2026-07-02*

Lost the option to never use the internal browser, dont know if its a bug or intended behavior

**Developer response:** This has been fixed with 5.1.0. Thanks for the feedback!

### 4/5 — Pretty good

*2026-07-02, version 5.0.0*

The app works pretty well on both iphone and ipad, far better than the hacked news website. It's often pretty responsive, though sometimes there are delays when refreshing the home page or loading an article's comments.

### 1/5 — Random crashes

*2026-06-19, version 4.17.1*

The update released around June 16, 2026 randomly crashes when viewing an article's comments. This is an annoying regression for an app which has worked flawlessly for many years.

### 5/5 — Just works

*2026-06-13, version 4.17.0*

The reader that just works. Got the right set of features and is only a few MB large.

## Frequently asked questions about Octal for Hacker News

### What does Octal for Hacker News do?

Octal is a mobile application that provides a curated news feed of breaking tech news from Hacker News. It allows users to read, vote on, comment on, and submit stories, fostering community engagement around technology topics.

### What are the key features of Octal for Hacker News?

Key features include the ability to vote on stories and comments, submit new posts, engage in fast, threaded discussions, search for specific stories, manage a favorites list, and customize the news feed with various filters. It also offers Dark Mode and accessibility options.

### Is Octal for Hacker News free to use?

Yes, the app is completely free to use. It explicitly states that it is free of ads, subscriptions, and tracking, making it a cost-free experience for users.

### What devices is Octal for Hacker News compatible with?

The app is designed for both iPhone and iPad, offering a beautiful interface optimized for each. It also supports accessibility features like Dynamic Type and VoiceOver, and is ready for any screen size, including an optional 2-pane interface for iPads.

### Who would benefit from using Octal for Hacker News?

This app is ideal for developers, tech enthusiasts, startup founders, and anyone who wants to stay informed about the latest trends, news, and discussions in the technology industry. It's for those who appreciate a clean, fast, and ad-free news experience.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 5.1.0 — 2026-07-03

• Added 'Split View' setting on iPad – toggle the two-pane interface on or off based on your preference.
• Added tab tap behavior – tapping a tab scrolls to top at the root, refreshes if already at the top, and pops back when nested.
• Fixed bug where opening the story URL from the comments view did not respect the Web Browser setting.

### 5.0.0 — 2026-06-30

Redesigned for iOS 26 with full support for Liquid Glass
• Added a new 'Threads' view to see your recent comments and their replies in one place.
• Refreshed iPad interface that utilizes an optional sidebar.
• Refreshed Filters interface for a cleaner, faster experience.
• Bug fixes and performance improvements.

### 4.17.2 — 2026-06-19

Fixed the tab bar not always respecting the appearance setting on pre-iOS 26 devices.

### 4.17.1 — 2026-06-16

Fixed issue with comments on iPads in landscape orientation.

### 4.17.0 — 2026-06-12

Added support for Liquid Glass.

## Apps similar to Octal for Hacker News

| App | Rating | Price | Category |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [NewsBreak: Local News & Alerts](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/newsbreak-local-news-and-alerts/id1132762804) | 4.8 (1,379,475) | Free | News |
| [HuffPost - News & Politics](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/huffpost-news-and-politics/id306621789) | 4.6 (26,277) | Free | News |
| [The Economist: News & Analysis](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-economist-news-and-analysis/id1239397626) | 4.9 (182,192) | Free | News |
| [CNN: Live & Breaking News](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cnn-live-and-breaking-news/id331786748) | 4.8 (1,664,114) | Free | News |
| [BBC: World News & Stories](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/bbc-world-news-and-stories/id364147881) | 4.5 (85,924) | Free | News |
| [Le Monde, Live News](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/le-monde-live-news/id294047850) | 4.7 (5,153) | Free | News |

## Related topics

[hacker news](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/hacker-news) · [hacker news app](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/hacker-news-app) · [cybersecurity news](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/cybersecurity-news) · [tech news tube](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/tech-news-tube) · [hacker protection social](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/hacker-protection-social) · [hacker news zero](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/hacker-news-zero) · [hacker news by emerge](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/hacker-news-by-emerge) · [y combinator](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/y-combinator) · [hacker news headlines](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/hacker-news-headlines) · [beamstart](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/beamstart)

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-28.*