I’ve been drawn to the content and quality of discussion of a community blog concept website called MetaFilter. Their concept of a community type blog harkens back before the days of similar sites, Reddit and Quora. I initially stumbled upon the site way back when on an Ask MetaFilter post and have been checking in ever since. They employ moderators so the quality of discussion tends to be high and trolling is dealt with swiftly.

I haven’t found any (if at all) great iOS apps to experience or browse MetaFilter and its associated sites, so I set out on a quest to build one using the knowledge I had gathered from my experience building iOS apps. The development of the app posed an unique set of challenges, mainly, they did not offer an API, so I set out to build a framework that has the capability to easily transform a variety of pre-existing websites in a blog/forum format to a native app which is seamless to the user.

The app offers a completely native browsing experience: a beautiful design with different site themes, support for almost all device types/screen sizes (iPhone, iPhone 6/6+, iPad), and multiple orientation support. The later are pretty rare for most first-version apps, so I’m proud to announce that they will be included from day one and you should be able to enjoy MetaReader on all of your Apple devices. Also included will be some improvements over the web based version such as intuitive gestural actions.

This is an initial version and one man side project so I know there are improvements to be made. As a gesture of appreciation and as a limited launch promotion, I will be offering the app at a significant discount of over 60% off at $1.99:

Please contact me directly (metareader@nathanmock.com or on Twitter, @nmock) if you encounter any hiccups or suggestions! Enjoy!

[cover photo PSD courtesy COBE]

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