Your Twitter feed used to show you links. Now it barely does. HyperTexting is a new iPhone app that takes the whole open web, blogs, newsletters, podcasts, and news sites, and turns it into one scrollable timeline that you actually control, not the platform.
Here’s the thing: RSS never went away. It just went underground. Every WordPress blog, every Substack newsletter, and almost every podcast still publishes a feed. What disappeared was a mainstream app that made following those feeds feel as easy as scrolling Instagram. That is the gap HyperTexting is trying to close.
What Is HyperTexting, Exactly?
HyperTexting is a free iPhone app built by Caleb Hailey, a 20 year tech industry veteran, through his company Herd Works Inc. It went live on the App Store in June 2026, and TechCrunch covered it in July as an exclusive.
Hailey built it after watching Twitter change in ways that bothered him. Links got buried, the timeline stopped being reverse chronological, and doomscrolling started to feel like the whole point of the app. His fix wasn’t to build another social network. It was to point a social media style interface at something that already existed: the open web itself, powered by the same RSS and Atom feeds that have quietly run behind the scenes since the 1990s.
You follow websites, podcasts, newsletters, and creators. HyperTexting pulls their feeds and lays them out in a single reverse chronological timeline, complete with profile pages, media playback, and a way to see when other sites you follow are linking back to a post. No ranking algorithm decides what you see. No ads show up between posts. And there is no AI generated filler competing for your attention.
How It Actually Differs From a Regular RSS Reader
Apps like Feedly and NetNewsWire have done the RSS job well for years, but they never shook their “productivity tool” feel. HyperTexting borrows the visual language of a social feed on purpose, because that is the format most people already know how to use.
| Feature | HyperTexting | Classic RSS reader | Social media feed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sort order | Reverse chronological | Reverse chronological | Algorithmic |
| Ads | None currently | Depends on app | Constant |
| Interface feel | Social media style | Inbox or list style | Social media style |
| Discovery | Hot Hyperlinks, Safari extension | Manual search | Recommended posts |
| Posting to your own site | Built in composer | Not supported | Posts stay on the platform |
| Data storage | 100% on device | Varies, often cloud synced | Stored by the platform |
The privacy angle is worth calling out on its own. HyperTexting processes your subscriptions and timeline entirely on your phone. There is no account required to use the app, and the “trending” feature, called Hot Hyperlinks, is calculated locally instead of by tracking you across the web.
Step by Step: Setting Up HyperTexting on Your iPhone
What this really means is you can be up and scrolling a curated, ad free feed in about five minutes. Here is exactly how to do it.
- Download the app. Grab HyperTexting from the App Store. You will need an iPhone running iOS 18 or later. There is no Android version, and iPad or Mac support has not shipped yet.
- Let the initial setup finish. On first launch, the app downloads a handful of default feeds to get you started. The “Get Started” button stays disabled until that finishes, so give it a moment.
- Follow feeds that matter to you. Tap “Explore,” then “Discover,” and either search by website name or paste in a link to any blog, news site, or podcast. HyperTexting finds the underlying feed automatically.
- Check Hot Hyperlinks for trending content. Under “Explore,” Hot Hyperlinks shows the top 100 most linked pages from the sites you already follow, all calculated on your device rather than pulled from a central server.
- Turn on the Safari extension. Go to “Activity” and follow the prompts to enable HyperTexting’s feed discovery extension in Safari. From then on, it flags feeds automatically as you browse, so you can add a site the moment you find it interesting.
- Read, listen, and follow the conversation. Tap into any post to read the full text (when a publisher provides it), play attached podcasts or videos without losing your place, and scroll to the bottom to see other posts that link back to it.
- Post to your own site, if you’re ready. The built in composer currently supports HyperTexting’s own publishing tool, HyperTemplates. Support for posting straight to WordPress, Ghost, and Hugo sites is in an invite only test right now. If you run a WordPress blog and want in, join the HyperTexting community to request access.
Who This Is Actually Good For
If you already run a blog, write a newsletter, or just got tired of a feed that shows you everything except the things you asked to see, this is worth the five minute setup. Bloggers and newsletter writers get a low effort way to see who is linking to their work through the response threads. Students and researchers get a chronological reading list instead of a ranked one. And if you have ever deleted a social app because it made you feel worse after using it, this gives you a version of that scrolling habit that is not actively working against you.
It will not replace TikTok, Instagram, or X for most people, and honestly, it shouldn’t try to. It is solving a narrower problem: making it easy to keep up with the specific websites, podcasts, and writers you already trust.
The Honest Limitations
- iPhone only, for now. There is no Android app, and iPad or Mac versions are planned for later this year, not available today.
- WordPress posting isn’t live yet. The composer works with HyperTexting’s own HyperTemplates tool today. WordPress, Ghost, and Hugo support is limited to an invite only TestFlight.
- Your feed is only as good as what you follow. Unlike an algorithmic app, HyperTexting will not surprise you with content you didn’t ask for. That is the point, but it also means the app does nothing for you until you put in the work of following a solid set of feeds.
- It’s a small, early stage app. Herd Works has said it may eventually add premium subscriptions or a single sponsored post per day to stay funded. Free today does not guarantee free forever.
Bottom Line
HyperTexting is not reinventing anything technically. RSS has existed since the 1990s and Google Reader has been dead since 2013. What HyperTexting is actually testing is whether wrapping that old, boring, reliable technology in a familiar social feed interface is enough to make people care about it again. Five minutes of setup gets you a timeline of exactly the sites you follow, in the order they were published, with nobody deciding for you what deserves your attention. For anyone who runs a blog, writes online, or just misses when the internet felt like it belonged to the people using it, that is worth a try.
If your feed has been feeding you everything except what you actually asked for, maybe it’s time to try one that doesn’t. Share this with the friend who still complains about the algorithm.
Sources
- HyperTexting, official website and product overview, hypertexting.com
- HyperTexting, User Guide, hypertexting.com/guide
- HyperTexting, “Welcome to the Feediverse,” company blog
- Sarah Perez, “A new app, HyperTexting, turns the open web into a scrollable social media-like feed,” TechCrunch, July 10, 2026
- HyperTexting, App Store listing, Apple App Store
Just Being Resourceful! 
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