Description: Development Update #2 from Akhouri Systems: exclusive glimpses of APIC v2, a privacy-first desktop image editor with Smart Export, batch convert and compress, GPS metadata removal and more. Try APIC v1 while you wait.
🚀 APIC v2 Development Update #2: The First Real Glimpse
A weeks ago I told you APIC v2 development had begun and showed you nothing.
Today the silence ends. 🎬
This is Development Update #2 from Akhouri Systems: a behind-the-scenes look at what we're building, how we're building it, and why we think APIC v2 can become one of the best free desktop image editors you can run offline on the planet earth 🌎.
📍 Missed Update #1? Read it here.
🧭 What is APIC?
APIC (Advanced Image Processing Center) is a free image tool for editing, converting, compressing and searching images, built by Akhouri Systems.
- 🌐 APIC Web: a browser-based photo editor
- 🖥️ APIC Desktop v1: the portable Windows app available right now
- ⚡ APIC Desktop v2: the next generation, in active development
If you've ever opened three different tools just to edit a photo, convert it to WebP, and compress it for the web, v2 is built for you.
👀 Glimpse #1: Smart Export, Where You See the Real Result Before You Save
Most editors make you guess. You drag a quality slider, export, check the file size, and repeat.
APIC v2 shows you the real encoded result next to your original, with a draggable before/after divider and a 1:1 zoom crop.
It also ships a Format Advisor. It encodes your image as JPEG, WebP, AVIF and PNG several ways, measures the quality of each (PSNR) and recommends the smallest file that still looks identical.
No more "is 80% quality enough?" Now you get numbers. 📊
🔐 Glimpse #2: The Privacy Inspector
Your photos can say more than you think. A single JPEG can carry:
- 📍 GPS location
- 📷 Camera serial number
- 🧑 Your name
- 🕒 Dates and times
APIC v2 decodes and shows you exactly what a file would reveal. It warns you when you open it, flags GPS files in batch jobs, and switches on metadata removal automatically when you export.
The core is built around one promise: local-only processing. No network. No telemetry. No accounts. 🛡️ peak Akhouri Systems stuff ✋🤚🔥
✨ Glimpse #3: Auto Enhance That Isn't a Black Box
Most "auto" buttons bake changes into your image and leave you stuck.
APIC's Auto Enhance analyses the photo and then sets ordinary Levels, White Balance and Vibrance sliders. Nothing is baked in, so you can fine-tune every value or undo it.
🧱 Glimpse #4: Fully Non-Destructive Editing
- Your original file is never touched
- Every step lives in a History you can travel back through
-
Text and logo layers (drag to place) are saved inside
.apicproject files - A live histogram with clipping warnings helps you catch blown highlights and crushed shadows
- Split view compares before and after right on the canvas
- Crash recovery autosaves your work, so a power cut doesn't cost you the edit
📦 Glimpse #5: Batch Studio
Got 500 photos? Batch Studio handles convert + compress + resize + text/logo watermark in one pass. It can reuse the edits from the image you have open.
You get per-file results, cancel, and retry, so one bad file doesn't ruin the run.
This is the batch image converter and compressor many of you asked for in the comments. 🙌
🎨 Glimpse #6: A Brand-New Workspace (This Week's Big Change)
The v2 interface was reworked this week, based on direct feedback:
| Before | Now in v2 |
|---|---|
| Left sidebar eating screen space | Top tab bar, like a browser, so the canvas and panels get more room |
| Features hard to find | Centered home search: type "compress", "convert" or "crop" and jump straight in |
| Small sliders | Larger sliders with exact number inputs for precise values |
| Crop was a bare draw-a-box tool | Full crop tool with drag handles, move, aspect-ratio presets and typed X / Y / Width / Height |
| Edit, then export, then convert, then compress | Export tab inside the editor: pick a format, set quality or a target file size, resize, remove metadata and save in one step, with a live size estimate |
| Default scrollbars | Custom thin themed scrollbars |
| Zoom felt off | Smoother wheel and touchpad zoom plus an option to invert the wheel direction |
The goal: edit → convert → compress → done. One window. One flow.
⌨️ Power users get a command palette (Ctrl+K) to run any action by typing its name.
🔧 Under the Hood: How We're Building It
For the developers reading this (hi 👋), here's the engineering side:
- Python + PyQt6 for the desktop UI
- Pillow + NumPy for the imaging engine
- A Qt-free core (
apic/core), fully unit-tested, kept separate from the UI - One shared pipeline for the editor preview, export and batch, so what you see is what you export
- Validated, serialisable operations, which is why projects save and reload reliably
- Headless UI tests: the suite is currently 128 tests passing
- Heavy work runs on background workers, so the interface stays responsive
Thanks to everyone who left architecture advice on Update #1. Versioned project files and a clean separation between the document model and the canvas are exactly the direction we're taking. 💡
🌍 Platforms: You Asked, We Listened
The most common request on Update #1 was macOS and Linux support. 🍎🐧
Honest status:
- ✅ Windows is the first target
- 🧪 The v2 app already starts on Linux in our builds
- 🗺️ macOS and Linux are on the roadmap, and I'm not forgetting them okay @xulingfeng @effessdev 🤣
⏳ When Does APIC v2 Release?
The rule hasn't changed:
APIC v2 goes public when Akhouri Systems reaches 2,000 total downloads across all products.
Update #1 started at 1,400. As of today we're at [1470]. Every download moves v2 closer. 📈
🛠️ While You Wait: Try APIC v1 (and Break It!)
APIC v1 is free, portable and needs no installer.
Why try it today?
- ⚡ It's the fastest way to see how APIC thinks about editing, converting and compressing images
- 🐞 Your feedback shapes v2, and worthy suggestions get built
- 📈 Every download helps unlock the v2 release
What to do: push it hard. Try huge images, strange formats and awkward workflows, then tell me what annoyed you.
❓ FAQ
Is APIC free?
Yes. APIC Web and APIC Desktop v1 are free.
Does APIC upload my images?
v2 is designed to be local-only: no network, no telemetry, no accounts.
Can APIC convert images to WebP, AVIF, JPEG and PNG?
Yes. v2 supports JPEG, PNG, WebP, BMP, TIFF, GIF and ICO, plus AVIF and HEIC when the optional codecs are installed.
Can it remove EXIF and GPS data?
Yes. The Privacy Inspector shows what a file reveals and can strip it on export.
Can I compress to a target file size?
Yes. Set a size goal like "under 500 KB" and APIC searches for the right quality.
Is there a macOS or Linux version?
Windows comes first. macOS and Linux are on the roadmap.
When is APIC v2 coming?
At 2,000 total downloads across Akhouri Systems products.
💬 Your Turn
Tell me in the comments:
- Which glimpse excited you most?
- What's the one feature that would make you switch to APIC?
- Windows, macOS or Linux, and which one first?
Drop your answer 👇, follow me here on dev.to for Update #3, and share this post with someone who still opens three apps to resize one photo. 😄
Stay tuned. The best is coming.
— Akhouri Anmol Kumar, Founder, Akhouri Systems
Special Thanks to @effessdev for giving me ideas for APIC v2 UI and features
Also
Akhouri Systems & I wishes @effessdev happy birthday this day he spawned in the planet earth 🌎 👏👏👏🥳🥳🎂
Top comments (7)
The GPS metadata warning is a really useful touch. People often share photos without realizing they might be sharing where they live or where the picture was taken. Making that visible before export is more valuable than just adding another editing filter.
yup, that's why our tagline is
"We Build What Others Forgot To Fix"
thanks bro for the comment :)
by the way your profile icon 😆
🤣🤣🤣
I'm on tablet right now so guess what after 2-3days I can now finally use my signature meme for our tagline
Bro why are you adding that big description on the top of every post? 🤔 Wouldn't bold/italics be better than heading? Maybe with
>?bro when I say to people that I'm Founder & CEO @ Akhouri Systems then what people thinks how much I earn from it:
my actual earning:
hmm yeah it can be... okay from next post I would not use bold.