Hacker News, I've been told, is where cool programmers and entrepreneurs go hang out if they enjoy a slightly more elitist crowd than Reddit. And by its mere target demography, Hacker News was bound to have many developers rushing to make a native Android application to peruse the site — you can see how many clients are out there if you simply search for the terms "Hacker News" on the Play Store. Yarn is the latest arrival, and it may just be one of the best yet if you trust Artem's judgement (which I do).

I won't go into the whole "oh look it's Material" thing, you can see for yourself in the screenshots. Where Yarn differentiates itself is by allowing you to login (even supporting multiple accounts) and interact with HN as you would on the site. You can submit links and text, upvote and reply on others' stories and comments, and share to and from Yarn. Filters help you distill only the posts you are interested in, and comment threads are color-coded and collapsible for improved usability and browsing.

So far, there are 3 issues with Yarn. First, the app has ads and no option to purchase an upgrade to remove them. Second, the interface hasn't been optimized for tablets just yet, like Hacker News (YC) and Hacker News by DWAK. And third, if you login to the HN website after using Yarn, you will have to re-login again on the app — the reason is that Yarn doesn't save your password but your login cookie, and that one gets invalidated when you login from the site.

Those issues aside, Yarn for Hacker News (which smartly uses Google's updated guidelines for third-party app naming) is free in the Play Store with several positive ratings and comments under its belt. You can start knitting the cords of Hacker News from the links below.

Alternate title: Spin The Yarn And Unroll The Threads Of Hacker News