IPhone app that isn't | Hacker News Reader

IPhone app that isn't

mobileorchard.com

32 pointsvais20 comments

Odd that they'd approve this as an app. Here's the code for free:

http://www.lifeclever.com/17-powerful-bookmarklets-for-your-...

http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/07/22/iphone-pro-tips-find...

Here are 5 reasons: http://findinpage.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-makes-this-find-...

Why? It may do things that you can find for free elsewhere but that does not mean it is not an app. At the very least, the wrapper that delivers the bookmark is an app.

Here's another list of free bookmarklets, including find in page, various translators, and view page source (haven't tried them myself):

http://ipuhelin.com/en/safariplus/

As the blog post author pointed out, let's not miss "a forest for the trees" - the post is not about THIS bookmarklet (as much as I'd like it to be, for self-serving reasons) or some other bookmarklet. MobileOrchard blog is for developers, not consumers of apps, and this post is about opening a new market and new possibilities for software applications that could benefit from tight integration with Safari and run in the context of any webpage - your imagination is the limit. The idea is that if one can monetize this, more professional-grade bookmarklets can become available. This is an opportunity for developers, and a boon for consumers.

The real issue is that it's not possible in Mobile Safari to bookmark a traditional <a href="javascript:...">Bookmarklet</a> link -- unlike a normal http:// link you can't even copy it -- the only option you get from a hold-tap is "Open".

Try bookmarking the "post to News.YC" bookmarklet from your iPhone -- you can't!

There are plenty of iPhone apps out there that aren't really apps at all, but just content of one kind or another-books, recipes, music. The beauty of the App Store is that content that could never be monetized on the open web now can be, and creators who could never make money from anything other than advertising can now make some money. This is a good thing, people.

Look at this thing, it's beautiful. It has a UI, for Pete's sakes! Beats the hell out of every other find-in-page bookmarklet I've tried in Mobile Safari. They've all been atrocities. 99 cents? I'm buying it.

This headline is terrible by the way. The original headline at Mobile Orchard is much better.

Yeah, I thought this was going to be another rant about the app store rejection process or something.

I expected another article about web-based Google Voice.

I just bought it and replaced my crummy old Find in Page bookmarklet in Mobile Safari with it, then gave it a test-drive.

It's GREAT! Exactly what I always wished for. Thank you vais for creating this!

I'm particularly irritated with the distasteful attitude the author took when he was mad a couple of hacker news readers didn't think it was fair to charge $0.99 for this.

I see how packaging up an existing bookmarklet and selling it is an app could indeed be construed as unfair (although, a point could be made about the added value of the package itself). Creating an original piece of software, on the other hand, and making it available to the public for a fee, is the very definition of fair play in my book.

Absolutely right! Bookmarklets are software like any other and deserve to be treated both by their creators and their users with the same respect and expectations that any other software gets. Great work, by the way-I'm happy you took a craftsman's approach and made something worthwhile.

dreyfiz, thank you for the kind words throughout!

Hacker News readership can be a tough crowd, but I wouldn't want to have it any other way ;) Thoughtful comments (i.e. where the reader took the time to do a little bit of research before commenting) make it all worth it.

http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=vais

http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=vais

Didn't sound like a distasteful attitude to me. Just believes in his own work.

I think Phil is talking about the author of the blog post, not the bookmarklet: http://www.mobileorchard.com/bookmarklet-as-app-store-paid-a...

Cheapskates know the price of everything, and the value of nothing.

Nice, though I switched to using the faster and more capable iCab ages ago. Have even replaced Safari as the system default browser with it.

iCab looks pretty cool - well worth checking out for its rich feature set.

On the other hand, I feel that switching from Safari to a different browser merely for the sake of in-page search would be overkill (like using a hammer to swat a fly) - I actually have no other beef with Safari, I genuinely like it. So I felt a bookmarklet would be the right-sized tool for the job.

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