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Show HN: TimeSnapper for Mac is available now

40 points by LeonB ↗ HN
Previously I told HN about the beta for TimeSnapper on Mac and many of you signed up and contributed feedback and suggestions during the beta, or responded with helpful comments in that thread[1].

TimeSnapper is now available in the Mac App Store, here:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/timesnapper/id1456327684?mt=12

Thank you very much to the 'Show HN' readers who helped us get here today.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19698363

32 comments

[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 67.3 ms ] thread
LeonB
(We're also separately emailing beta contributors, as we have done throughout the beta period.)

Also, if you ever want to ask questions about organizing a beta, I'm always keen to answer. (Though Jon did almost all of the work on this one, thanks Jon.)

akuji1993
Maybe you can put an article out about that, if one of you guys enjoys doing those :) Sounds like something I'd be interested to read.
LeonB
Okay I’ve added it to my backlog (I blog at secretGeek.net)
akuji1993
One thing about the App. As someone dealing a lot with customers, UX, UI design etc. You definitely need another logo.

This icon says "This is something really old and complicated. This is for the 40-something businessman, not for you tech-savy youth", or something in that direction.

AdriaanvRossum
Yes, I have the same feedback: please use a modern icon. Love the concept though, nice work.
LeonB
Agreed. We’re planning to revise in the next year or so. At the moment we wanted the brand recognition so that existing customers who are looking to use the Mac version know and trust that this is the same product. Modernising the icon can come in a subsequent update. Cheers!
akuji1993
I'm not sure I agree with you, in that the recognition is more important than the new icon here. I think, if you keep the name the same, I'd swap out the icon faster to have some eye caught new customers instead. But that's a hard decision to make, I can completely understand your argument.
nicoburns
Agree with the other commenter. Change out that icon ASAP. I definitely wouldn't click on that if I hadn't seen this on HN. The existing is actually blurry on retina/hidpi screens.

Personally (given the name of the tool) I recommend something turtle themed.

wlesieutre
Since the App Store shows icons at a large size, it's blurry on non-retina screens too:

https://i.imgur.com/kJiaHwM.png

Seeing that icon, I would assume the quality of app I'm getting is not the quality I expect for $30.

Per Apple's documentation, you need icon sizes up to 1024x1024. This represents a 512x512 size at 2x DPI.

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

At the very least for the short term you could hire someone at an online freelancing site to trace the existing icon into vectors and make larger versions of it.

Shank
Honestly literally any other icon would be better, and that’s something you should do today (not later). I understand that you think brand recognition is really important, but the current logo screams “I’m a Windows application ported over!”

You will just sell more copies, straight up, if you change the logo.

dddw
30 bucks for a screenshot app... 3 bucks I can easily life with, and would instantly grab my wallet without thinking. 10 bucks or 20 bucks even if I would use this often. But 30 is quite steep IMHO
klausjensen
I have many times ended up billing more time because of TimeSnapper - time I would otherwise have forgotten about.

For me, it is worth the price.

I have used TimeSnapper on Windows for at least 5 years.

adamnemecek
It's not a screenshot app.
bobakanoosh
How is me making a script to take a screenshot of my screen every 5 seconds and then putting them in a folder for each day any different?

The only thing feature I can see from the apps page is that you can play back the screenshots at whatever speed you want, which hardly warrants $30.

dddw
this is indeed basically what I meant. but seeing the other comments I can see an use/product case for this. As long as it's not subscription based I have no issue with the pricing. Although I wouldn't grab my wallet at this pricepoint
Someone1234
It is a productivity/billings app that happens to use screenshots as a data source.
noeltock
Alternative: ScreenNinja (cheaper I think, $20)

http://getscreenninja.com/

jwong_
An alternative I used to use when I wanted this feature:

`while [ 1 ];do vardate=$(date +%d\-%m\-%Y\_%H.%M.%S); screencapture -t jpg -x ~/Desktop/project_name/$vardate.jpg; sleep 10; done`

ellisv
Came here expecting to see this as a top-level comment. Really not sure why someone (here on HN) would pay $30 rather than just write a simple script like this.
joshstrange
I could see paying $30 for the options/playback. I'm not sure if `screencapture` gets all the desktops or just the active one or what. Also the playback UI looks nice and is a much better way to check what you were doing and for how long than a directory of images would be. If it was a subscription services I'd be looking for alternatives but one-time purchase? $30 seems reasonable.
aeorgnoieang
Based on the man page it captures the 'screen' for all monitors unless otherwise constrained by options.
siebology
I’m guessing the target market is users who are not proficient in scripting, but rather business users who want to monitor their employees or non-coders who want to retroactively be able to construct time logs of their work.
skinnymuch
I’m not at a computer or Mac right now. Would getting different monitors be easy?

ScreenNinja seems to also provide a number of features that would prob take a while to implement if you wanted them

skinnymuch
Been using the beta for a while. And really enjoying TimeSnapper. Were any features added since beta or it’s mostly bug free now? $30 is a bit steep for me right now.
wojtekkru
I plan to use it alongside Toggl time tracker. Toggl desktop client has a "Record Timeline" feature but it syncs the data to the cloud while I'd rather store it locally.
fredley
$30 is a lot, that's the same amount as Factorio. Of course, something is worth what people will pay for it, but this seems a very small thing to sell at that price point.
bobx11
$30 seems kinda high for what it does.

You can do this with cron and the mac screenshot cli. I have been for years. It’s the best way to fill in your time sheet.

I also made a small react app that shows thumbnails and supports zoom and splitting the time with export. Glad to push it to a repo if people want it.

bradknowles
Personally, I’m not so concerned about the logo. If anything, it seems kitschy and somewhat unprofessional, but that alone wouldn’t stop me from trying it.

The price is a bit more daunting. A lower introductory price would definitely help me get over that hump.

But frankly my biggest concern is disk space. If I have 4K monitors, how often does this thing fire and how much disk space does each screenshot take? How long until I’ve filled up a full 1TB of expensive SSD?