Product Hunt, an increasingly popular place for sharing and discovering new products, on Thursday released a major refresh to its somewhat underwhelming iPhone application. Lo and behold, the new Product Hunt 2.0 for iPhone is here.
First and foremost, the app brings out a beautifully revamped interface that’s both super clean and useful, with snazzy animations that elevate the experience.
More importantly, new features have been introduced that let like-minded individuals like yourself create curated product collections to share with others, bookmark products for later and more.
For starters, it is now possible to follow other users in Product Hunt for iPhone. This is a great addition.
I’ve been using Product Hunt on a daily basis to discover emerging new apps that I blog about here and being able to follow my favorite product hunters is a big bonus.
Like its web interface, the mobile app will now recommend related products to the one you’re looking at right now, based on your past upvotes and interactions. Again, this should help surface interesting new products and services in ways more meaningful than before.
Funny story: we actually released the Product Hunt app a day early by accident. I was at the DMX concert at the time. Hashtag startups.
— Ryan Hoover (@rrhoover) April 9, 2015
Searching other people’s curated product selection or creating your own collections is going to be huge, I think, especially with tons of painstakingly curated selections like “Best GIF apps”, “Great apps for travels”, “Prank Products” and some such.
There are already hundreds of different product collections available to explore, search and browse through the new Collections tab.
Lastly, you can now install iPhone and iPad applications you discover in Product Hunt right inside the app. Simply tap the app link and up pops the App Store sheet allowing you to download and install the app in question, without ever leaving Product Hunt.
Although many of these features have been accessible on the web, it’s nice that the mobile app is moving toward feature parity with the web interface.
Product Hunt 2.0 changelog:
- Follow other product-loving friends
- Curate collections of products (get creative!)
- Search for products, collections, and people
- Hunt products on the go
- Discover related products
- Download apps within the Product Hunt app [insert yo dawg joke]
The 13.3-megabyte download requires an iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 8.0 or later. For the time being, the app doesn’t include an interface specifically designed for iPads.
Great easter egg in @ProductHunt for iOS! Have you found it yet? #producthunt Congrats @rrhoover on beautiful app. pic.twitter.com/a3RjENUXEt
— Design Hunt (@designhuntapp) April 9, 2015
Originally introduced as a simple email list by 28-year-old founder Ryan Hoover in August of 2014, Product Hunt has quickly become quite a phenomenon as investors, journalists and users grow reliant on it to discover what’s new in technology.
Last fall, they received $6.1 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz and this February the service won the “best new startup” of 2014 Crunchie award.
Mashable has a fascinating overview of Product Hunt’s humble beginnings based on their interview with the founder so give it a read to learn more about this essential new service.