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Comment by arihant | Hacker News Reader

Two very important things you should fix:

1.) Stop that animation! It gives headache while reading your app summary.

2.) Screenshots should be there. EDIT: Specially because after download, all I see is a login box. So even after downloading the app, I have no clue what I'm getting at.

EDIT: The animation also gives my Mac a stroke.

EDIT: After trying to use your app. Where do I register? I tried putting random stuff and it says "Google Reader login failed". So is this about Google Reader by any chance?

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I very much doubt that this will be the website for the finished app. This is just a place where you can for now download the completely unfinished beta. The app is not really out yet.

As you can see on the website for his iPhone app [1] and iPad app [2] the developer is very capable of creating informative and practical websites to present his products.

[1] http://reederapp.com/2/

[2] http://reederapp.com/ipad/

Those are good pages.

However, the point of HN and beta versions is to have meaningful feedback. We would do a serious disservice to the community if we don't be honest about what exactly sucked.

I think he might be willing to do a similar homepage for his final app. It would hurt him if he goes off beta with the present animated feel. Maybe he's willing to try something new. I seriously vote against it if he is.

There's a difference between "Hey, HN! Check out what I made! Thoughts, please?" and "Hey, HN! Theres this awesome app that I really like that has a new beta out."

The point of HN is also to have people with a little more sense than the average Joe tester.

You're giving feedback about the wrong thing. The point of this beta is clearly to improve the app, not his website. In fact, that's not even the app's own website (which is http://reederapp.com/). He's using his studio's.

I was quite curious what this whole made@gloria website is all about and searched around for a bit because the website doesn’t provide any context. Gloria is apparently a cafe in Zürich and the website was put up by a otherwise unrelated group of developers who meet there. It looks like it’s merely supposed to link to the different projects of the different developers. It doesn’t look like it will ever be the actual website for any project.

You're probably right. The reederapp.com website actually mentions made@gloria at the bottom. But the made@gloria website has a very club like feel. So I figure it's a hacker group.

Also, the link has "brewery". So yeah, the hackers at the cafe it is, probably. :)

You sir are correct! I didn't download because the animation don't inspire confidence and the lack of screenshots meant I wasn't even sure what I was getting into.

I agree. I'm not downloading a random app that doesn't give me any sense of what it does, or is for.

It's easy and respectful to your prospective users to at least include a screenshot and maybe a paragraph describing an app.

This looks like some kind of beta release. Presumably the people who are interested in it are those who already use Reeder on the iPhone or iPad (Reeder is generally considered the best RSS client on those platforms) so I wouldn't be too harsh on the author.

I agree. I'm not downloading a random app that doesn't give me any sense of what it does, or is for.

Indeed: I still have no idea what it does. I figured that it's an RSS reader, based on the name, but I could easily be wrong.

I'd guess that most people who want this app have been waiting for it for a while, and will have known exactly what it was – this isn't the finished build, it's just a draft for us to get excited about!

I second your points and add...

Not being an iPhone user, I am confused that I cannot tell whether this will have any relevance to me on my Mac. Nor can I find any indication of how I may register in order to log in (or whether registration is free).

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