Paper

Raised as a usability problem by 27 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2012–2026), in 17 threads.

People raised many different problems with Paper, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.

Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.

The newest 26 complaints

Books snap closed on their own, making them hard to keep open2026-07-24
Constant corrections and rabbit-hole tangents make paper notebooks hard to keep and review2026-02-12
Reading a paper book on the side is awkward; page position makes one side bad2025-09-22
Smudges ink across the hand, making handwriting even harder to read, especially for left-handed writers2024-08-27
Long books are thick and unwieldy, hard to read comfortably in bed2022-12-17
Searching after browsing a later page shows blank results instead of resetting to page one2021-08-07
Opening and closing the FAQ modal adds browser history entries, so going back takes many presses2021-08-07
Can't make folder view the default, so it needs a click every time2019-06-05
Adding content higher up forces retyping the whole page2018-08-18
Hard to find what they're looking for in paper notebooks2017-11-15
Can't figure out how to assign or inherit folder permissions; folder sidebar has no tree view2015-10-16
Accidentally touching an unowned dimmed tool triggers an ad for it2014-02-05
Popups vanish and there's no way to get back to missed content2014-02-03
Losing place in newsfeed on tap, swipe-only navigation, and a tutorial needed before use2014-02-03
Completely unusable with VoiceOver, so visually impaired users cannot navigate the app2014-02-03
Switching between data feeds is unintuitive, and taps sometimes get no response2014-02-03
Hard to browse the site on a desktop computer2014-01-30
Video is laggy and choppy, with no pause, seek, or progress indicator2014-01-30
Sideways scroll nav gets stuck between slides and transitions lag2014-01-30
Undo/rewind is frustrating and often doesn't work as intended2013-11-20
Drawing app is too slow and laggy to draw with2013-11-19
Rewind gesture is hard to trigger and failed attempts accidentally draw scribbles2012-12-06
Rewind dialog often misfires into other actions and does not track finger rotation2012-03-29
Strokes lag behind the stylus, noticeably slower than Noteshelf or Penultimate2012-03-29
Circular rewind gesture is frustrating to use2012-03-29
Can't figure out the right gesture to change colors2012-03-29