igorz introduced Project Cypress, a native iOS Discourse client app currently in early development, available via TestFlight. The app aims to render standard Discourse posts natively and support multiple communities. Initial builds include placeholder UI and limited features, but updates have progressively added table and video rendering, YouTube support, collapsible posts, topic navigation, and private community login. merefield raised concerns about distributing closed-source beta software from a new account, citing security risks with TestFlight. igorz explained the app is closed-source to support potential future paid features and noted it was inspired by the abandoned Fig app. Falco praised the familiar UI design. Users reported bugs, including issues with subfolder installs (jordan-violet), which were fixed in later releases. The app currently defaults to dark mode, with light mode support planned. Releases 0.1–0.3 introduced search, login/logout for private communities, unseen topic highlighting, and multiple crash fixes. Community feedback via TestFlight has been instrumental in shaping development.
Just wanted to take a moment to introduce a project I have started. Project Cypress - a native Discourse client app for iOS.
It is currently in a very early development stage, and the first build is now available through TestFlight.
The first goal (proof of concept) was to support native rendering for most standard Discourse posts, and allow adding multiple communities. Current functionality is very limited, but I still wanted to make it available early on for those who might be interested. The app name/icon are just placeholders for now.
However, especially since you are not otherwise known to the community and have yet to earn its trust, wouldn’t it have been a good idea to publish the source? Is this on GitHub somewhere?
You are expecting users to install closed source, test code from an untrusted author (brand new meta account only 3 days old) that hasn’t yet even had to pass Appstore production deployment checks?
@merefield Thanks for the feedback! I wasn’t aware of these TestFlight scams, so that’s an understandable risk. The app is closed source, since I was thinking of adding some paid options in the future, to support app’s future development (I’m a sole developer).
For some context, I run a Discourse community for my other app (HomeHabit), which is one the main reasons I wanted to have a native client to use. Originally, I thought of doing this project a few years ago, however, Fig app was posted here around that time, so I just started using it instead. Now that Fig’s development has been abandoned, I decided to revisit this idea.
Let me look into this, seems like not getting expected response from the API. Thanks for trying it out!
Aside, is the app in light-mode for you by default? Is that default on your device? That might be a bug, since it should be always in dark-mode (for now, so it haven’t been tested in light mode yet).
