An unofficial iOS client for TabNews, a Brazilian tech community where developers publish posts, debate in comments, and earn reputation through tabcoins. Think Hacker News or Reddit, but focused on engineering culture in Portuguese.
This app started as a better way to read TabNews on the phone. It grew into a full client: library tools, digests, widgets, Apple Watch, push notifications, and a set of mini-games I built for breaks between articles.
Download on the App Store · fan-made, not affiliated with TabNews
| Home feed | Post reader |
|---|---|
 |
 |
| Newsletter | Dev Games hub |
|---|---|
 |
 |
| Big O | DevLeet |
|---|---|
 |
 |
If you're outside Brazil, TabNews probably won't ring a bell. That's the point of this README.
TabNews is a public platform for long-form technical writing and discussion. Posts rank by community votes (tabcoins). There's a weekly newsletter, community digests, and a comment culture that's closer to a dev forum than a news feed. The official site works well in Safari; this project asks what a native iOS experience could add on top of that.
The home feed pulls live content from the TabNews API. You can switch sorting strategies (recent, relevant, and more), open posts in a native reader with Markdown rendering, listen via text-to-speech, and jump to the original page when you want the full web context.
Comments load in-thread with reply support and a compose flow that handles Markdown formatting.
Reading on mobile only works if you can save things. The library tab holds liked posts, highlights, notes, custom folders, and a read-later queue, all persisted locally with SwiftData. Highlights are tied to text selections inside the post body; notes attach to specific articles.
TabNews runs a newsletter and the community produces weekly digests (curated roundups of the best posts). The app has dedicated surfaces for both, with unread badges and push notification hooks so you don't have to remember to check.
Search goes beyond a text field: query parsing, filters, and a Discover section for browsing promoted or editorial content without knowing exactly what you're looking for.
Between reading sessions, there's a hub of small games aimed at developers. Not a separate app bolted on; same idea as the rest of the product: rest your eyes, keep your brain on.
- DevWordle: five-letter dev vocabulary, daily + free mode
- DevLeet: describe-the-algorithm puzzles
- DevSpot: spot the odd word out
- Big O / AlgoSpot: identify complexity or name the algorithm from code snippets
- Color Match / Sound Match: arcade-style perception games with HSL sliders and a synthesized tone ribbon
Daily challenges, free practice after completing the daily run, Game Center leaderboards, and achievements for Wordle/Leet progress. Badges and weekly challenges tie game activity back into the main gamification layer.
Widgets (small / medium / large) show recent posts, top relevant posts, and the weekly digest on the Home Screen, with deep links back into the app (tabnews://post/..., tabnews://digest, etc.).
Apple Watch companion app for glancing at posts and synced library state via App Groups + WatchConnectivity.
Push notifications through Firebase Cloud Messaging for newsletter and digest alerts.
| Layer | Choices |
|---|---|
| UI | SwiftUI, iOS 26+ |
| Local data | SwiftData |
| Networking | async/await, custom API client against TabNews |
| Auth | native login + web session fallback, Keychain for tokens |
| Push | Firebase (FCM + APNs) |
| Games audio | AVAudioEngine oscillator (ToneGenerator) |
| Games social | GameKit (leaderboards & achievements) |
| Widgets / Watch | WidgetKit, watchOS, shared App Group group.tabnews.com.app.tabnews-ios |
No storyboards. The app target, widget extension, and watch app live in one Xcode project under newtabnews/.
tabnews-app/
└── newtabnews/
├── newtabnews.xcodeproj
├── newtabnews/ # main iOS app
│ ├── App/ # entry, tabs, deep links
│ ├── Core/ # views, services, view models
│ ├── Models/
│ ├── Network/
│ └── Notifications/
├── TabNewsWidgets/ # Home Screen widgets
├── TabNews Watch Watch App/
└── Scripts/ # content audits, push test helpers
Rest game content (Wordle word lists, Big O / AlgoSpot challenge pools) lives as JSON in the repo and is validated with small Node scripts in Scripts/.
Requirements: Xcode 26+, iOS 26 simulator or device.
git clone https://github.com/luizmellodev/tabnews.app.git
cd tabnews-app/newtabnews
open newtabnews.xcodeprojSelect the newtabnews scheme and run.
GoogleService-Info.plist is gitignored. To test push locally, add your own plist from the Firebase console into the newtabnews/ target. The app runs without it. Feeds, library, and games work; only remote push registration won't.
Leaderboards and achievements use IDs prefixed with tabnews.* in App Store Connect. Sandbox testing requires a Game Center account on the device/simulator.
| URL | Opens |
|---|---|
tabnews://home |
Home feed |
tabnews://newsletter |
Newsletter tab |
tabnews://digest |
Digest sheet |
tabnews://post/{owner}/{slug} |
Specific post |
Used by widgets, notifications, and external shortcuts.
This repo is public on purpose. Spotted a bug? Want a feature the App Store build doesn't have yet? Open a PR. Fixes, polish, and small additions are all fair game.
You don't need permission for drive-by fixes. For bigger changes (new screens, API behavior, game content overhauls), open an issue first so we don't duplicate work.
- Fork the repo and clone your fork.
- Create a branch off
main(fix/comment-crash,feat/watch-complication, whatever describes it). - Open
newtabnews/newtabnews.xcodeprojin Xcode and run the newtabnews scheme. - Make the change. Keep PRs focused: one thing at a time is easier to review than a kitchen-sink diff.
- Push and open a pull request against
main. Describe what changed and how you tested it (simulator, device, which flow).
- Secrets stay out of git.
GoogleService-Info.plist, APNs.p8keys, and similar files are gitignored. Never commit them. - Rest game JSON lives under
Core/Views/RestGames/. If you edit Big O or AlgoSpot pools, runnode newtabnews/Scripts/audit-rest-games-pools.mjsbefore opening the PR. - Match what's already there. SwiftUI patterns, naming, and file layout in the repo are the style guide. No need for a formal doc; read the surrounding code.
- Firebase / Game Center / push are optional for most contributions. You can fix UI, reading flow, or games without configuring either.
Questions or half-baked ideas are fine in issues. If you're not sure whether something fits, ask there before spending a weekend on it.
Live on the App Store, actively maintained. This is a fan project, not official and not endorsed by the TabNews team. API usage respects the public TabNews endpoints; if you're building something similar, read their terms and be a good citizen.
Luiz Mello · github.com/luizmellodev