Press Kit

If you want to talk about Hand Mirror, this might help

What's the story with this update?

The main event is the new feature Snaps: you can capture a photo in a Polaroid-style complete with a marker that you can draw with. It's a love letter to a time when Apple used to have fun and building quirky apps on the Mac. Also a complete redesign of every single view to better fit with macOS Tahoe.

Target release date: 20th January

Press Kit Assets: Download →

What's Hand Mirror?

It's a Mac app that places an icon in the menu bar, clicking it gives you a quick view of your camera. Hand Mirror Plus is a one-time purchases that unlocks extra features like taking Polaroid-style pictures, more control over the window for recording/streaming, quick check of your Microphone levels, and a bunch more.

Why should I care?

I mean, you don't have to. But it's a fun and quirky app used by over 1.5 Million people, from students checking their fit, to professionals checking their surroundings before joining a meeting, to NASA engineerings recording presentations… I don't know I like it.

Business model

One time purchase unlocks all the past present and future Hand Mirror Plus features. Every time a new feature is added to the bundle the price goes up.

Some of my favorite little details

I have been having a lot of fun building this side project, and I absolutely adore the Mac as a platform. Here's some of my favorite details that don't matter and no one cares but I need to tell someone about them… is anyone even reading this?

I was born a bit too late, and never got to design a physical box for my software, so I decided to make a fake one. Clicking "What's New" shows a fake 3D box for Hand Mirror 4, complete with a leaflet highlighting the most important changes.

The Snaps UI is a bit… different. Since I have floating UI, multiple windows, I had to spend a lot of time to make sure the UI adapts to the position and size of the camera window.

There's a section where you can click a button to "Meet the developer". Turns out I was hiding behind the icon all along and come out to greet you. But if you keep clicking that button, eventually I have to get back to work so I disable the button. There's 6 different greetings in total.

This started as a joke and then I couldn't let go… if you click on the Hand Mirror Plus title, you can change the name, and it will be persistent and across the whole app. Every menu, screen, etc…

In the About screen, if you subscribed to Hand Mirror Plus you absolutely have a role in the credits. Also, since the App icon is a mirror, well you can click on it to… mirror.

Original release date

March 18, 2020

Developer

Rafa