These are both macOS applications that have yet to reach enough in sales to be sustainable. However, I work on them full-time in hopes of reaching sustainability in the near future.
"Why do you think it hasn't been as successful as you thought it would be..."
Exposure and importance. Getting exposure for a macOS application (or any application for that matter) is tough. The lion's share of excitement these days is around mobile applications and web services. Trying to get publishers excited enough to write about a desktop application is challenging...
Importance is something that's taken me a little bit to understand. There might be some "utility" or "nice to have" applications for macOS that make a decent living, but I think if you really want to turn an application into something that has long-term sustainability, then you need to find a way for your application to become essential to a user's workflow. Excel, Lightroom and Final Cut Pro are all essential applications to their respective user's. Fileloupe and Videoloupe are "nice to have" apps in their current versions. People enjoy them, but they aren't essential.
With the exception of maybe a few outliers, I'm not convinced that you can make a living selling macOS apps for $10 and hope to make up revenue on volume. I think you need to get into a higher price range and if you want to sell a more expensive product to someone, then it has to fall under the "essential" category and not the "nice to have". That's my goal with Fileloupe 2.0 and Videoloupe 2.0, but there's a ton of development to do.
(Oh, and I'd forgot how much more work went into making a macOS application versus an iOS application. To say that my original time estimates were off is a laughable under-statement.)
"How much time/money did you spend building it..."
Development on Fileloupe started in the spring of 2014 and version 1.0 shipped in the summer of 2015. Development on Videoloupe started in the summer of 2016 and 1.0 shipped in the spring of 2017. Living expenses have been cut drastically over the years so that I can continue to do this full time. (Hint: Living in Thailand is a lot cheaper than living in San Francisco or Vancouver...) Sadly, I don't belong to any special "comma club" so there's an end-date to this dream if profitability cannot be reached.
"What kind of iterations / improvements did you make to try and salvage it"
I learned a ton building version 1.0 of each product. Arguably, I learned more than I should of and likely would have been better off starting with a bit more of a plan and clearer vision for each app. Regardless, I now have a much better idea of what each app should be and I'm hard at working on version 2.0 for each.
I can see how the issue of importance would be relevant. Is there some feature you can add, and then advertise, that would solve a burning pain for your target audience?
I believe so, which is why I'm working on a version 2.0 of each application.
In the case of Fileloupe, version 1.0 is "just" a file viewer at the end of the day. It's a really fast file viewer with some neat features, but it's still just a file viewer and thus it has to compete against everything from the macOS Finder to Adobe Bridge and Lightroom.
Fileloupe 2.0 adds the ability to create libraries that are persistent across app launches. Photographers have a dozen applications out there that let them organize their photos but there aren't many applications for organizing other types of media that use a similar system of albums, ratings, color labels and flags.
For example, videographers have few options for cataloguing and organizing their raw footage outside of the Finder and professional media suites. Fileloupe 2.0 will allow them to organize their video files in a similar way to how a photographer might organize their photos. (And it's not just applicable to videos. You could organize graphics, PDFs, documents and just about anything else.)
I've never really had a macOS user tell me they were desperately in need of a fast file viewer, but I have had many tell me that they want a better way to organize their files and media. I'm hoping to solve "that problem" with Fileloupe 2.0 and thus make it a much more essential application for a set of users.
Currently living in Bangkok and it's already quite noticeable the changes since mid-2015 when I was last here. Sukhumvit Road, one of the main streets, has a fraction of the street vendors today compared to 2015. The further away you get from the popular/touristy parts of town, the less affected it is. However, between these recent changes and the ever increasing number of lots being turned into construction sites for new condos, Bangkok is rapidly changing and its famous street food scene is suffering.
If it were limited to major streets like Sukhumvit, that would be one thing. It can be impossible to squeeze down some of those blocks — especially if you're carrying your bags, having just landed, and trying to get to your room.
I don't think it is, though, and that makes me sad. BKK street cart food is some of the most amazing stuff I've ever eaten.
In light of today's Apple Mac Pro announcements, I'll chime in...
Problem: Building macOS desktop applications as an indie-developer.
Project: Fileloupe for Mac and Videoloupe for Mac
Fileloupe is a lightweight media browser that I actually announced on Hacker News a few years back. Videoloupe was just released and is a video player/editor in the spirit of the older QuickTime Pro 7. I work on both of these full-time and I'm currently in a coffee shop in Bangkok. The jury is still out whether or not being a macOS indie developer is sustainable...
So, a slight bump to the existing machines and a promise for a fully revamped one next year.
I have the most recentish Mac Pro. It's a fantastic machine, I wish it had sold better, but perhaps the proliferation of iDevices and laptops more or less killed it except for special niches :/
Two years ago, the Hacker News community helped kick off my indie-developer "career" with Fileloupe for Mac. Now I'd like to share my second app, Videoloupe for Mac with everyone. If you're a macOS user and do anything with video, then Videoloupe probably has some cool features you'll find interesting.
I've "soft launched" the app this week and would love any feedback. There's a free trial, but if you'd like to purchase a copy then please take advantage of this 50% off coupon code: VLHACKERNEWS
I've benefitted so much from reading the stories of other indie developers here on Hacker News. Hopefully my story helps encourage others. Thanks so much.
You can download a beta version of Fileloupe at the link above and take it for a spin. Note that this is a beta for version 1.1 so some features are present that haven't yet made it to the Mac App Store version. If you find that Fileloupe is of value to you, then I'd love to have your support in the Mac App Store.
Thanks a lot!
have you planned to include the possibility to add/change the infos of the file or add tags?
although you say and probably do not want to change the files?
i am thinking of the case of adding red tags, and then in the finder, the file have this red background.
At the moment, I'm taking a very conservative approach to adding what I would call "file manager" features. I'm not trying to create a Finder replacement and with the restrictions that the app sandbox imposes, it's very difficult (if not impossible) to even perform some operations that users might expect if they started to see Fileloupe as a file manager. That's not to say that I'm against them ("Move to Trash" might appear in v1.1) but I am being overly cautious.
With specific regards to Finder labeling and tagging, it's more likely that I'd add support for Fileloupe to be able to show labels and tags long before I added the ability to add or edit those tags.
Yes, sorry. I know there's still a decent number of people using Mavericks but with El Capitan coming out later this year it's doubtful I'll add Mavericks support.
Thanks for the support. Using Fileloupe as a document browser is definitely a use-case that others have discovered (and one I didn't originally plan for).
Dragging a folder into Fileloupe just loads all of the files in that folder (and all sub folders). The original files are left in place and nothing is copied, duplicated or moved. If you have a folder full of documents (maybe your Dropbox folder), then you can easily drag your entire Dropbox folder into Fileloupe, filter by type (PDF, iWork, MS Office) and then easily browse just the documents you're interested in. (You can, of course, drag in as many folders as you want.)
There is currently no "list view" mode, but others have asked for one as well. I might add one down the road, but there's no immediate plan for one.
Staging is a way to "pin" a single file to the left of the viewer, allowing you to continue previewing other files while a single one stays "staged". Actions where staging is of interest:
* Finding the best photo out of a group (just keeping staging the better one).
* If you're dealing with multiple documents, you might want to keep a certain document staged while you browse through the others. (Maybe an itinerary, index, presentation, agenda, table of contents, glossary, etc...)
* Staging a document is also a quick way to open the same document in two separate viewers. This is helpful when you need to look at separate sections of the same document or movie. (Like non contiguous pages of a PDF document.)
Thanks for the kind words and offer of support. If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to email me directly or post here for others to see.
The keyboard shortcuts are still very much influx. The Escape key used to close the viewer, but then enough other people wanted the Escape key to take them back to the grid view, so I changed it. People really seem to like to use the Escape key and the space bar which causes a lot of usability issues because their functionality gets so overloaded. (Escape is also overloaded to exit from full screen mode, while the space bar both switches from grid mode to the viewer and toggles play/pause on the media controls.)
I doubt I'll ever get a sequence of shortcuts that makes everyone happy. Maybe something like "Command-Period" might work for closing the viewer so long as the embedded PDF viewer doesn't swallow any shortcuts.
Cool, glad to hear it's working well for you. Performance was something that was a priority from day one. My email is in my profile so if you have issues or general feedback then please don't hesitate to contact me directly.
Videoloupe for Mac (https://www.videoloupe.com)
These are both macOS applications that have yet to reach enough in sales to be sustainable. However, I work on them full-time in hopes of reaching sustainability in the near future.
"Why do you think it hasn't been as successful as you thought it would be..."
Exposure and importance. Getting exposure for a macOS application (or any application for that matter) is tough. The lion's share of excitement these days is around mobile applications and web services. Trying to get publishers excited enough to write about a desktop application is challenging...
Importance is something that's taken me a little bit to understand. There might be some "utility" or "nice to have" applications for macOS that make a decent living, but I think if you really want to turn an application into something that has long-term sustainability, then you need to find a way for your application to become essential to a user's workflow. Excel, Lightroom and Final Cut Pro are all essential applications to their respective user's. Fileloupe and Videoloupe are "nice to have" apps in their current versions. People enjoy them, but they aren't essential.
With the exception of maybe a few outliers, I'm not convinced that you can make a living selling macOS apps for $10 and hope to make up revenue on volume. I think you need to get into a higher price range and if you want to sell a more expensive product to someone, then it has to fall under the "essential" category and not the "nice to have". That's my goal with Fileloupe 2.0 and Videoloupe 2.0, but there's a ton of development to do.
(Oh, and I'd forgot how much more work went into making a macOS application versus an iOS application. To say that my original time estimates were off is a laughable under-statement.)
"How much time/money did you spend building it..."
Development on Fileloupe started in the spring of 2014 and version 1.0 shipped in the summer of 2015. Development on Videoloupe started in the summer of 2016 and 1.0 shipped in the spring of 2017. Living expenses have been cut drastically over the years so that I can continue to do this full time. (Hint: Living in Thailand is a lot cheaper than living in San Francisco or Vancouver...) Sadly, I don't belong to any special "comma club" so there's an end-date to this dream if profitability cannot be reached.
"What kind of iterations / improvements did you make to try and salvage it"
I learned a ton building version 1.0 of each product. Arguably, I learned more than I should of and likely would have been better off starting with a bit more of a plan and clearer vision for each app. Regardless, I now have a much better idea of what each app should be and I'm hard at working on version 2.0 for each.