[mulcahey]

I remember seeing their first public demo at LA Hacks in 2014. Seemed like a couple of kids right out of college. They had the iPhone's screen hooked up to the projector and one of their friends kept sending them silly text messages the whole time that they had to dismiss. This was before the Do Not Disturb feature came out.

I remember wondering how it took so long for someone to make a half decent stock trading app for the iPhone -- all the other apps at the time sucked (and they largely still do). I was on ETrade before but signed up for the Robinhood waitlist immediately -- haven't left since being allowed in early 2015.

[caymanjim]

I know better, and I still use Robinhood. I also use Fidelity, but their mobile and web apps suck beyond description, and used to use Scottrade, who also suck. Robinhood doesn't just look better (although that's important); it's easier to use and faster; bank transfers are WAY easier; you don't have to jump through hoops to enable options trading (which means a lot of people who shouldn't trade options now do, but it's still better for those who want to); you can trade on deposits instantly instead of waiting a week for the deposit to clear; margin is easy to use. There are plenty of foot-guns in everything I said, but there's also plenty of convenience and utility for people who are trading carefully.

[ziml77]

I also know better and still use Robinhood. I don't day trade (actually can't since I work in finance) and I haven't even considered options or buying on margin. So none of those were what drew me to using Robinhood. Instead it was that the experience of trading via their app was excellent.

Maybe others have gotten better now, but I really don't see a dire need to switch.

[_qbjt]

I feel like the only person who actually likes the Fidelity app. Sure, it's not visually attractive like Robinhood but the amount of information you get is far greater. Also the iOS app works on both my iPhone and iPad whereas Robinhood only renders the phone view on iPad. The app even has proper support for the Magic Keyboard so cursor interactions work the way they should on iPadOS. Fidelity definitely has a "boomer UX" quality about it but once you get used to it, it's really not that bad.

[tayo42]

I like fidelity's app and website. Making complex trades on a phone doesn't make sense I think anyway. It's like programming on a phone, if you want to do anything serious use a computer.

[bmlzootown]

The line between the two are blurring further every day, though. Might not be that far off in the future when they're actually interchangeable.

[tayo42]

Hmm I'm not sure, the problem with phones is the screen size. Just getting enough information on a screen is difficult then intuitively managing it. Even a tablet might struggle.

[Apocryphon]

Have you tried TD Ameritrade's Think or Swim?

[adabyron]

Think or Swim is awesome if you're technical or putting a lot of time & geeking out into this world.

Robinhood is awesome if you're new or want something much simpler.

If I was daring, I might compare it to Linux/MS vs Apple on here but I don't dare because people would take that the wrong way.

[fnordfnordfnord]

ToS is pretty good. Takes some getting used to though and is sometimes confusing.

[carlivar]

The ToS people's follow up venture, Tastyworks, is now better IMHO.

[nscalf]

Robinhood is the example I use for showing that good design can be a company making differentiator. In many ways Robinhood is much worse as a trading platform, but the usability and simplicity of getting started is orders of magnitude above all other competition.

[collias]

Absolutely. Their front-end is phenomenal, even if their back-end is subpar.

It's to the point where I use Robinhood to look at market info, then open my actual brokerage app to execute the trade. Robinhood is lightyears ahead of traditional brokerages in terms of UX.

[fnordfnordfnord]

Their app and UI are great, really great; but I closed most of my trades after the Gamestop fiasco and I'm not coming back. I kept the debit card and keep a few bucks in there, still use the app for quick quotes sometimes but that's about it.

[jppope]

same

[tmp_anon_22]

iOS development sucks. It had a huge amount of churn this decade due to the transition into Swift. Documentation wasn't just out of date, it was in a different dimension. Every SO answer was a mix of incompatible versions and - what answers existed were best guesses from people who also had no concrete documentation to go off of.

Your best bet was to cozy up to Apple teams or preferred Apple partners like Facebook and Uber, and see if the inside scoop could save you a few months of maddening frustration.

You can see this evidenced in engineering blog posts from companies like Uber and Twitter, they had to hire soooo many people to build out their mobile app.

[sakekasi]

I was at that LA Hacks as well! The first one right? That was the highlight of the hackathon! I remember everyone really tripping over themselves to try to sign up

[paulpauper]

good fonts, contrasting colors, and large buttons. UI is so important. never underestimate it

[systemvoltage]

I think the opposite - UI of Robinhood is awful. For example, to see a list of orders you’ve placed, you gotta interact with a fake chat box and it takes at least 15 seconds to see the last order.

Call me old school. TD Ameritrade and Charles Schwab has the best UI IMO.

[agumonkey]

won't name them but other big exchanges phone apps are pretty nifty.. you can operate lot with a thumb it was a bit surreal

no advanced trading / charting / analytics but still quite surprising

[weird-eye-issue]

They aren't an exchange

[tw600040]

Can you elaborate on why you think robin hood is better than etrade?

[BoysenberryPi]

Robinhood's value is all UI and UX. Every other finance app is in the past. Vanguard, Etrade, even ThinkOrSwim; none of them even come close to how easy Robinhood is to use. I also left Robinhood after the GME thing but man their app is so streamlined compared to everyone else.

[mgfist]

I use RH sometimes to look at prices and then go back to Etrade to make actual trades.

[mulcahey]

I’m not the most sophisticated trader but I appreciate their UX and simplicity, which I think is true of most of their user base

[rezistik]

I think the question is whether RH is sticky, they have good traction in growth, and I think it will be sticky. If enough people are doing fractional shares trading it's really hard to transfer out fractional shares to different brokers. Might actually not be possible.

[pedroma]

I did an ACATS from RH. They just sell the fractional shares at market price and send the cash.

[rezistik]

Right so you have to purchase your fractional shares on your next platform, which I guess would only amount to the fractions so maybe not a huge deal if you have 100.5 of a stock you're only losing the .5, but it could add up if you have a really diverse portfolio.