Show HN: I created an app to make my online reading experience easier
q.mimicrylabs.com
q.mimicrylabs.com
BTW, I found the layout of the website to be a bit confusing. Perhaps in the side-by-side portion, there should be some sort of divider? Or better yet, one column with a simple tab/toggle above the mobile/desktop segment so that someone can see how it works on one or the other?
Also, thanks for thinking of user privacy here. It definitely makes me more likely to use the services, and I think it was very clever of you to create a dummy account that HNers can use.
What makes you think that? Happy Pocket premium user here. The product staled a bit for quite some time, but it received a large-ish update in January and they've posted this at the bottom of the changelog:
> We’ve also made significant changes to our underlying codebase so we can make more rapid improvements in the future.
That definitely doesn't sound to me like it's anywhere close to being killed.
Instapaper is more dead than pocket is. Their android app hasn't been updated since June 2019 [0].
[0] - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.instapaper...
Pocket works great, even on the free plan. The apps have a beautiful UI and it is fast.
Instapaper is definitely coasting right now, and as far as I can tell they haven't made any substantive improvements in half a decade. The reader aspect doesn't necessarily need to change in that timeframe, but the web has changed, and they should be integrating with new/different things to stay current.
I mostly made Q(ueue) to be focused around my reading experience, instead of my collecting experience. I wanted it to be really easy to find that next article (which is why it's based around a queue). The browser extensions were meant to make it super easy to add things or retrieve the next entry and just start reading.
> BTW, I found the layout of the website to be a bit confusing. Perhaps in the side-by-side portion, there should be some sort of divider?
Yea, I think the main page needs a bit of rework for simplification. I think the tab/toggle approach would be nice - let me see if I can add that in to make it nicer!
> Also, thanks for thinking of user privacy here. It definitely makes me more likely to use the services, and I think it was very clever of you to create a dummy account that HNers can use.
Thanks! I really dislike having to create accounts for apps too, so figured it'd make it easier for other people as well. There was another commenter that mentioned it would be easier to just allow local offline access. I think I'll try giving that a shot soon - the dummy account isn't too scalable / will get swamped with content too quickly in the long term anyway.
(I haven't tried Instapaper yet, so will have to check that out in more depth before I can comment on that.)
https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/keep-a-reading-list-s...
I don't know if you've had a chance to try out the browser extensions yet, but would love to hear your thoughts on them (it's how I primarily use it right now). It has keyboard shortcuts to let you interact with your reading queue. I think it helps make the process of reading smoother.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/q-by-mimicry-labs/...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/q-by-mimicry-...
Long term lurker here - hoping to share my side project, Q.
Like most people reading this, I normally start my day off by going through the first few pages of HN, finding articles I'd like to read. If your experience has been anything like mine, you probably also open up a bunch of tabs, read a few, and eventually close the rest (especially if Chrome is eating up all your memory!). It's pretty much the same process with other websites I visit as well.
I built Q(ueue... heh) to make my online reading life easier. I wanted a simple way to add and read articles while on my computer, so I made a browser extension that lets you do things with just keyboard shortcuts (Pressing "Ctrl+Shift+Space" adds my current page, while "Ctrl+Shift+Right Arrow" fetches the next article in my queue - I can also right click add, which I find helpful when browsing HN).
In order to pick up where I left off with my phone, I created an app (on iOS only for now) that makes it really easy to add (via the share thingy) and read articles. You can even set it to open up articles in reader mode which I find gets rid of a lot of visual clutter on most pages (and annoying ads).
I've been using it for a few months now and have been quite happy so wanted to share Q with the community as well.
At the end of the day, this is really just an extremely minimal bookmarking app fine-tuned to how I personally wished they worked. I really hope you find Q useful as well!
I collect the bare minimum to create an account (username, email, and password) but I understand people might not want to create an account.
Here is an account you can use if you want to try it out first: email: hackernews-demo-user@gmail.com password: hackernews
Would love any feedback or suggestions on things to improve! You can also reach me at mimicrylabs@gmail.com as well.
Website: https://q.mimicrylabs.com/
Firefox extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/q-by-mimicry-...
Chrome extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/q-by-mimicry-labs/...
iOS app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/q-by-mimicry-labs/id1552578757
Privacy policy at: https://q.mimicrylabs.com/privacy
> I collect the bare minimum to create an account (username, email, and password) but I understand people might not want to create an account.
Note that HN doesn’t require an email. You don’t strictly need one either. I understand why you’ve probably gone with one anyway.
What’s your plan for monetisation? It’s not ads, apparently, so what’s going to pay the hosting bills?
Yup, I agree - it was really just for resetting the account password. I don't really bother validating the email at the moment, so it shouldn't be too hard to just make it optional like HN does.
> What’s your plan for monetisation?
It really depends on how many people start using the app. If they can all fit on a single server including myself, probably not going to monetize it because I plan on using it myself. My original plan was to create a "pro" version that adds functionality for power users (like having offline reader mode). I'm not really interested in going down the ads route, so that seems like the most likely prospect at the moment.
I also had a quick look at your privacy policy, and agree with what oarsinsync mentioned. If you could skip asking users for their details, but still allow them access to the tool, you would probably have a lot more users sign up. Before they sign up, you could store their bookmarks locally. Then perhaps later on, you could ask them to sign in to save their bookmarks to the server to be accessed on other devices.
However, this all depends on what way you plan to monetise the app/extensions?
Can I also ask what framework are you using for the mobile app? It isn't React Native by any chance is it? I ask because I'd love to know how you got on with building the app for the App store. I hope to publish iOS & Android apps for DarwinMail[1] in the coming weeks.
Also, it would be absolutely amazing if you built the Chrome extension with React Native and had some tips.
PS: The site is down ATM, probably because of the influx in all the lovely visitors from HN :)
Yea, that's a great idea - it'd be really neat if folks could just use it locally without creating an account. Hoping I can get this added in the coming weeks!
In terms of how it's built - it's just vanilla code. The website and browser extensions are both build using plain Javascript + HTML + CSS. The backend server is in Python (uses FastAPI and Postgres for the DB). And the iOS app is in Swift.
I don't have much experience with React (/Native) yet so unfortunately no tips, sorry!
(and yup, sorry about that - buckled a bit under the load earlier, but is back up now - keeping an eye on the server now so hopefully no more issues!)
Will try and make sure it doesn't happen again!
Loved the layout design. Looking forward to trying it.