
Show HN: TimeSnapper for Mac is available now - LeonB
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].<p>TimeSnapper is now available in the Mac App Store, here:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;apps.apple.com&#x2F;us&#x2F;app&#x2F;timesnapper&#x2F;id1456327684?mt=12<p>Thank you very much to the &#x27;Show HN&#x27; readers who helped us get here today.<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19698363
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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.

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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!

~~~
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.

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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](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...](https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-
guidelines/macos/icons-and-images/app-icon/)

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.

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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

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adamnemecek
It's not a screenshot app.

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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

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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.

~~~
consultutah
Please do!

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noeltock
Alternative: ScreenNinja (cheaper I think, $20)

[http://getscreenninja.com/](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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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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)

