Apple has reportedly bought SnappyLabs, the one man photo technology startup that developed SnappyCam, a camera app that allows users to take full resolution photos at 20 to 30 frames per second.
The acquisition was first suspected when SnappyCam disappeared from the App Store and all of the SnappyLabs websites went offline. "I first noticed something was up when we got tipped off that SnappyCam had disappeared from the App Store and all of SnappyLabs' websites went blank," Josh Constine of TechCrunch reported. "Sources have since affirmed that the company was acquired by Apple, and that there was also acquisition interest "from most of the usual players", meaning other tech giants.
John Papandriopoulos, an electrical engineer who studied in the University Of Melbourne, found a way to make the iPhone's camera take full resolution photos faster than Apple's native iPhone camera, which can take photos at maximum 10 frames per second. He then integrated this photo technology into SnappyCam. The app, which was sold for $1 on the App Store has been a top seller in nine countries allowing Papandriopoulos to run his company without big funding from venture capital firms.
Papandriopoulos is the lone member of the SnappyLabs team, which means he will likely be working with Apple on future projects as a result of the acquisition. Apple has not confirmed the acquisition but buying SnappyLabs and getting its founder on board make sense. With Papandriopoulos joining its team, Apple can feasibly update its Camera app using the former's burst mode photo technology. Camera has become an essential feature in smartphones and the ability to provide high-resolution, rapid-fire burst mode shooting could be a selling point for Apple's mobile devices.
Apparently, Apple isn't the only company that made the offer as there have been plenty of interest in acquiring the SnappyCam app. Papandriopoulos said in September last year that he had been in talks with several companies. "In terms of commercial interest in SnappyCam, there's been quite a bit actually, which has been great in many ways," he said. "There are a lot of big ones, Internet giants as you like to say, and I've spoken to several of those as well as some smaller companies."
