My Pivot in 2025
Hey everyone. It’s been a while since November when I joined the company in Japan —— yes, now I work in Tokyo, Japan as a full-time Software Engineer.
You may know me as an indie developer, probably for my PhotonCam app. But don’t worry, the app continues to update regularly as you can see, and some features are on the way.
This blog is a wrap-up of 2025. I’ll talk about my pivot to working abroad, my products and more.
My word of this year: Pivot
Let’s face it: being an indie developer and building my own products are fun and they can actually help me earn some money to live in China mainland. The amount I can earn fluctuates based on how much I put effort into my marketing.
But overall, it’s such a fun process:
I use my apps everyday.
Ideas emerge in my mind, while I also listen to feedbacks from my users.
I log all the needs from users and sort them by their prioritizations and more.
Usually, the features that both me and users need are prioritized to develop.
Develop, develop and develop.
Showcase some previews on social media, aiming to gain users attention.
Release builds to TestFlight and see if I can have some feedbacks.
Release the final build to the App Store and made some design materials to promote the new version.
Being the first and only one person to do all those things are fun and sometimes tired: I am actually not a material to do the marketing things, especially I sometimes refuse to “over-marketing” the product by avoiding some exaggerating words — there’s nothing in the world you will regret if you miss, even for all the apps people love. I put myself to develop fun and useful products and if you happen to like it and be willing to pay for it, it’s a win-win.
Though being lack of skilled marketing techniques, I can sometimes gain more support than I thought: I really appreciate the users who are willing to post photos in the social media tagging PhotonCam, I really do. You help more people discover my apps!
Then, the next question is: since I am happy with being an indie developer, then why do I change?
First of all, you may have noticed that as a Chinese, I am more willing to write blogs in English — since I write code in English, why not just do all those stuffs in English? And that’s also helping my career as an Engineer. Furthermore, I have always been dreaming to work in an international environment. That’s the first reason why I choose to work aboard.
Being an indie developer also means I am self-employed (or you can just say unemployed). I am not backed by any fundings and what I can spend is the money I save in the old days. I do not also have any restrictions to China mainland, which means that when I apply for a VISA for traveling in a new country, I have to face more challenges. One example is that I can only apply for a one-time VISA to visit Japan. Such limitations will make me stay home for more time than I want.
If you know me well, you would know how much I like visiting Japan. I have come to visit Japan for 5 times, adding up to 70 days in my life. Most photos I post in my Unsplash are taken in Japan during my stay.
Then, when I have two thoughts:
I want to work in an international environment.
I like visiting Japan.
I am starting to think that whether I should choose a career path in Japan.
There were some struggles about that, the main one is:
Living and working in Japan is not the same as traveling. What if the experience of living and working here deprives the fun you would gain in Japan?
I have also considered another path: attending a school in USA and then find a job after graduation. This’s the idea that emerged after I visit USA in April, 2024 and meet many friends there. They made me think this’s also a possible path for me.
For the question above, there’s no answer to that unless I try it myself.
Then I did.
The process of finding a job oversea was also a very struggling and miserable process. One thing I should also mention is that I also pivoted to learn Japanese and planned to attend a language school, since I can’t speak Japanese and most of the jobs in Japan require Japanese. But I am glad that I can find a job that English is the main language and my workmates are from all over the world.
My journey learning Japanese continues. I’m not sure how much “living in Japan” helps, but it does push me to think in both English and Japanese, which is a good way to get out of my comfort zone.
The Star of my product: PhotonCam
It’s a second year since PhotonCam is published. Though I also have any other apps, such MyerList, MyerTidy and MyerSplash series, but as you have already know, my focus is on PhotonCam — it’s the star of my product now.
I have published updates on App Store 48 times in 2025, including 400+ features and bug fixes according to my record in Notion database.
Here are some key features you may be interested:
Supported Color Calibration, which is a similar feature in Adobe Camera RAW.
Optimized Portrait depth effect. The new Portrait effect will have a better effect than before, and have leveraged Portrait Effect matte to optimize for Portrait photos.
You can fixate a Frame to a specific aspect ratio like 1:1. Photos with this Frame will always be 1:1 after being saved.
Supports setting outer border width, vertical padding to a specific value, adding more flexibility to creating your own Frames.
Support editing and saving ISO Gain Map HDR images (requires iOS 18.0+).
You can set the LUT intensity when creating a new filter or in the photo editor.
Now you can use PhotonCam as the iOS Photo Extension to quickly add filters, date stamps, and frames into the editing photo.
PhotonCam now appears in the Share List, allowing you to share the photo quickly from other apps to PhotonCam to edit.
You can perform “drag & drop” on iPad and iPhone to quickly open a photo or file to edit.
Support Interactive Zoom in the camera view.
Support enabling Fusion Camera in the app settings. Using Fusion Camera will allow the system to switch camera lens automatically.
Support de-sharpen using Non-ProRAW solution.
Copy and Batch Paste Edits. Long-press the photos to copy and paste edits.
Pin your albums to quickly access them in the gallery page.
You can fine-tune the HDR effect strength directly in the editor.
You can now select multiple filters on the filter management page and perform batch actions such as deletion, marking as favorite/unfavorite, hiding or unhiding, and selecting color tags or filter tags.
Supports exporting HDR photos as HDR videos.
Now you can re-generate HEIF / JPEG from the DNG in the gallery page in batch.
Now the app supports Bayer RAW, which is known as Zero-Process mode.
Add support for iPhone 17 series and iPhone Air: support dynamic aspect ratios for the front camera.
Refreshes some looks in the app, matching the iOS 26, iPadOS 26 design.
Supports manual macro mode.
For the photo information inspector, now you can switch between the Edited or Original version, letting you inspect more information like the RAW file size.
The noise/grain feature is completely revamped, supporting dynamic grain effect as well as letting you adjust the grain size and choose to use Colored Grain.
Introducing the new Halation effect, joining the revamped grain effect to create a film-look.
Supported SLR flip.
Made some improvements to the fade and other adjustments.
As I mentioned before. PhotonCam will continue to evolve and please stay tuned ;)
Blogs on Substack
I have also been writing and posting blogs on Substack. Including the monthly report, I have published 25 blogs in 2025 (not including this one). Currently, I write tech blogs for record and inspiration purpose only: I don’t get revenue from that. Even though I can open a paid subscription on Substack, I still don’t intend to earn money from it, as I still can’t guarantee the update frequency.
However, if my tech blogs have helped you and you can consider buy me a coffee via the link below. I really appreciate your support!
https://buymeacoffee.com/juniperphoton
The unknown future to discover
Based on the numbers above, it’s been a fulfilling year. Yet I still have a memorable trip in this year: one in Mohe, Heilongjiang, China and the other one is in Onomichi, Japan.
I honestly don’t what would change given that I now live and work in Japan. Would I have more time and money to travel? Would I still have energy to deal with the feedbacks from users every day after work? How would I excel at my work?
かも知りませんね….また探索しましょう！