Hey Product Hunt! You may have seen some of our stories on here, but I'm so excited to finally share our app with you! When you try it, I think you'll agree it's a way better experience than reading on the web. Fullscreen makes a *huge* difference. Joe and I would love to hear your feedback! Thanks!! PS - I wrote more about what we're doing here: https://medium.com/hardbound-co/... PPS - I talked even more about what we're doing on a podcast here: https://soundcloud.com/hardbound...

I've been watching Hardbound since it was a rough prototype on @nbashaw's phone. It now feels like something he would make -- polished and elegantly simple. @nbashaw, how do you decide what stories to create and how important is it to get people on your platform creating stories?

Entire PH community must download this app for three reasons. First, it is probably one of the most freshly designed apps that have launched in a while. Second, It's not just a new app but a new story telling format. Third, PH community *might* not exist if it weren't for @rrhoover and Nathan's friendship (😅).

Already a big fan of the content Hardbound is pushing to my phone. I'm confident it's going to change quite a bit how we consume stuff on mobile. Have a great launch guys!

Hardbound is the best app I installed on my phone this year. Seriously, it has interesting content, it's well presented and makes things easy to understand. Already a big fan!

I loved being a part of the early Hardbound beta! Hardbound quickly became one of my favorite apps on my phone. The stories are entertaining and educational (with amazing visuals 🔥). Great work Nathan, Joe, and everyone else who worked to get Hardbound to this point!

Hey Nathan, congrats on a great launch! I love the ethos behind Hardbound and what it seems you all are trying to achieve. I share similar notions of media dynamics with regard to music and video especially. One thing I highly recommend everyone here do is to head to Medium and read Nathan's post: https://medium.com/hardbound-co/... In particular, I'd pay special attention to how concepts of media evolution are discussed within the context of history, and how new types of media production, distribution, and evolution rise in new eras of tech innovation. I'm particularly bullish on these concepts because I see it so dramatically mirrored in music, among other media formats. Hardbound seems, at the very least, a great experiment at what new media styles can be constructed and popularized in this period of media flux. I'm excited to see the possibilities, awesome job! My own response to Nathan's post here: https://medium.com/@adammarx13/i...

Curious - Android? Web?

This is amazing :) please come up with an android version as well. @oneyenjug @nbashaw

Congrats Nathan and team! If you could have any writer make a hardbound story, who would it be? :)

Awesome app. Congrats on the launch.

The future of E-book for the ever decreasing attention spans. +1

First learned about Hardbound thanks to @beccabigwords when she did her VR story. Absolutely love the app. Moved to my home page with my other readers (Flipboard, Longform, Pocket, New Stand, theSkimm). Way to go, @nbashaw!

Congrats @nbashaw! Have been a big fan of this since the beta launched in January. The mission reminds me of this question posed by @benedictevans: https://twitter.com/benedictevan... "If you could port your product onto the desktop web, is it really native to mobile?" It's going to be so interesting to watch truly mobile first storytelling and content creation evolve. For e.g YouTube is an incredibly successful mobile product. But it's not THE native mobile video product. Snapchat is. That's because it's built for mobile first creation and consumption (for e.g. mobile video editing, AR, tap-to-skip stories, portrait video, overlaying emoji's etc), in the process empowering 10-100 million more people than ever before to create daily video. Likewise mobile websites and reading text on the web can be considered an incredibly successful mobile product, but Hardbound offers this more native experience with tap-to-progress, portrait optimized and awesome, visually compelling animations. Maybe best of all, these tools can enable the creation of new types of content verticals in the future, especially once they open up an editor. Super excited to watch this grow.

I absolutely love Hardbound stories. Definitely the best thing about Thursdays! The content is so unusual but so easy to digest

Woot. Super excited for this official launch! These stories are super fun and educational. Perhaps the best way to learn something new.

Super pumped to see Hardbound in the app store, and look forward to more stories. These are like the best of those "How Stuff Works" books coming alive in my hand. I feel like I'm walking through the story vs. flipping a page, which is just a fundamentally new and awesome way to learn and experience content. Congrats Nathan and Joe!

I love how this creates a new format of content consumption. Kinda like what Vox did for media, but this goes way further. @nbashaw will the content also be available on web or in-app?

I wrote a story for Hardbound and, above all, found it to be an incredibly fun experience—it was kind of like a mix between writing a blog post and scripting a short film/documentary. There are definitely constraints, but the constraints are productive: they force you to be creative (and visual) in getting a point across. I'm excited for the creators/writers/storytellers who are going to stretch the Hardbound format and have a lot of fun in the process. Kudos to @nbashaw and the team!!!

Congratulations, Nathan! I've been a fan of Hardbound since @nbashaw released the beta. I highly recommend this app, it's perfect when you're waiting for the train.