The value is in an interface for HN that actually makes sense for an iPhone: no tiny voting arrows that don't work with fingers, no comment box that you need to scroll back and forth to see what you're typing, comments that fit the screen's width at a hopefully-readable font size.
Maybe it isn't worth five bucks, that's just where I decided to try out pricing to start. But I did try and make it as easy as possible to use if you don't want to pay: it's free if you build it yourself. (I even submitted it to the pirate sites so those without a dev certificate can install it too.)
Edit, iPad version: I am planning on making one, but Hacker News is usable as it is on the iPad in the browser, there's much less of an advantage for a native client.
As a defense (because the complaints about price are perceived as some intrinsic abhorrence to shell out money):
The price makes sense if there is some perceived added value that exceeds the price point. I am not afraid to spend money, but it needs to help me. For example, I spent money to buy issh because I found a need for using vnc on my phone.
It's nice to think that people should pay for your development time but that means nothing if you aren't providing any value.
So let's consider what makes HN (which is free in website form) inconvenient on iPhone in the first place:
1) typing very long responses and scrolling back. This is true, writing long responses on the iPhone is a pain because of the keyboard (which your app doesn't seem to solve) and because the iPhone text editor doesnt put scrollbars. That is true, but I genuinely wonder if people try to wrote really long responses on the iPhone, at least long enough to blow away the size of the box.
2) tiny arrows -- personally it's a nonissue for me because I would have to zoom in anyway to read the text. I could see how this is an issue for those who vote before reading the article.
3) Comments that fit the screen width -- I can appreciate the argument, given that you group conversations, but it's sometimes hard to see the full relationship between comments if you hide the sub replies. For example, some people reply to a comment of a comment with a new root comment, and that new comment doesn't make sense until you read the other tree.
I don't mean to be a negative Nancy it's always important to ask about the value add to the potential customers. And this is my opinion. Clearly others find value in your app. That being said, complaining about cost isn't s plea for a free app but rather is a query into how the author perceives the value-add of the application. And just to test, I wrote this on my 3GS
I'm an iOS developer, and I think $5 is a bit steep to simply try it out. I'm going to build from source and then buy it if I like it, but you may want to consider making some sort of free version that people could use to evaluate it.
Maybe it isn't worth five bucks, that's just where I decided to try out pricing to start. But I did try and make it as easy as possible to use if you don't want to pay: it's free if you build it yourself. (I even submitted it to the pirate sites so those without a dev certificate can install it too.)
Edit, iPad version: I am planning on making one, but Hacker News is usable as it is on the iPad in the browser, there's much less of an advantage for a native client.