Hacker News, typeset like a morning broadsheet. A native iPhone and iPad reader with sign-in, voting, commenting, profiles and search, in a cream-newsprint design with a blackletter masthead.
THN is free software under the GNU GPL-3. Build it, change it, share it.
- Front page, Newest, Best, Ask HN, Show HN and Jobs, laid out as a broadsheet
- Comment threads as "letters to the editor", collapsible, sorted by top or newest
- In-app article reader; side-by-side article and comments on iPad
- Sign in or create a Hacker News account (with a web sign-in fallback for captchas)
- Upvote, downvote and unvote stories and comments
- Comment, reply, edit and delete your own comments
- Favorite, hide, flag, edit and delete stories; submit links and Ask HN posts
- Profiles with karma, about text, submissions, comments and favorites; your upvoted and hidden lists; profile editing
- Search across all stories and comments (Algolia)
Requirements: Xcode 27 or later, iOS/iPadOS 27 SDK. No third-party dependencies.
git clone https://github.com/hpetersen/THN.git
cd THN
open "THN - The Hacker News.xcodeproj"-
Select the THN - The Hacker News scheme and your device.
-
Signing: choose your team under Signing & Capabilities, or create
Config/Local.xcconfig(git-ignored):DEVELOPMENT_TEAM = ABCDE12345 // Optional; the default is an Xcode placeholder ID that works for development. PRODUCT_BUNDLE_IDENTIFIER = com.yourname.thn -
Build and run.
A free Apple ID works for running on your own device (apps signed this way expire after 7 days; rebuild to renew).
| Argument | Effect |
|---|---|
-screen story / -screen browser |
Opens the first busy story (and its article) |
-screen account / -screen search / -screen user:pg |
Opens that screen |
-query SQLite |
Pre-fills and runs a search |
-feed show |
Starts on a section |
Reading uses the official Hacker News Firebase API and
the Algolia HN Search API. Hacker News has no write API, so
signed-in actions use the same links and forms as the website (HackerNews/HNWeb.swift):
vote and favorite links carry a per-item auth token, and forms carry an hmac. The only
thing stored is the user cookie, in the Keychain.
| File | Role |
|---|---|
HNClient.swift |
Firebase + Algolia reading |
HNWeb.swift |
Sign-in, voting, forms (HTML scraping) |
Session.swift |
Signed-in account, Keychain |
FrontPageView.swift, StoryView.swift |
Front page, story and comments |
ProfileView.swift, SearchView.swift, SignInView.swift |
Accounts, profiles, search |
Extras.swift |
Build-specific hooks; empty in source builds |
Theme.swift, PaperChrome.swift |
Palette, type and shared newspaper chrome |
Contributions are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md; pull requests need a one-time signature of the Contributor License Agreement.
- Masthead typeface: Chomsky by Fredrick R. Brennan,
SIL Open Font License (
HackerNews/Fonts/Chomsky-OFL.txt). - THN is an independent project, not affiliated with Y Combinator or Hacker News.
Copyright © 2026 Henrik Petersen. Licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.