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79 points cindori | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.209s | source

Hi HN, I'm Oskar, a solo indie Mac developer from Sweden. For those in the Mac community, you might know me from my other apps like Sensei and Trim Enabler.

For years, I've been frustrated by the lack of customisation of macOS. In particular the Lock Screen which supports animated wallpapers, but only ones provided by Apple. There's never been a way to add your own personal videos.

I decided to figure out how to solve this, and the result is Backdrop 2.0. Backdrop is my Live Wallpaper app for Mac, it can play video wallpapers on your desktop. And now it can play on your Lock Screen too.

The core technical challenge, as you can imagine, came from trying to do something that Apple otherwise does not allow. However, through extensive reverse engineering of the macOS wallpaper system, I figured out a way to provide Backdrop wallpapers to the system in a way that allows them to play on the lock screen, and even appear in a custom section in System Settings.

I'm here all day to answer any questions—especially about the reverse engineering process, the challenges of integrating with macOS, or the experience of being an indie Mac developer.

Would love to hear your thoughts and feedback.

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lordofgibbons ◴[] No.45250376[source]
If you're going through so much trouble to reverse engineer macOS to customize it in a non-standard way, why even bother staying in the Apple walled prison. Why not just use Linux at that point? You can customize it to your heart's desire.
replies(2): >>45250499 #>>45250685 #
dmitrygr ◴[] No.45250685[source]
Because there is nobody who makes linux devices of equal battery life and performance to macbooks, nor does linux wake up from sleep as reliably.
replies(1): >>45256657 #
lordofgibbons ◴[] No.45256657[source]
fair point on the battery life. though my Thinkpad x9 gets a solid 8-10 hours of heavy coding session on a single charge.

> nor does linux wake up from sleep as reliably.

This hasn't been a problem for at least the past 7ish years.

replies(1): >>45256744 #
1. dmitrygr ◴[] No.45256744[source]
8 hours was impressive in 2019. Nowadays, I don’t take a charger for my MBA with me on weekend trips. It is life-changing.