SnappyCam 3.0.2
Today, we’re excited to introduce a groundbreaking update to SnappyCam: full-sensor capture up to 8 Mpx at an incredible 20 pictures/sec. That’s faster than any other mobile platform, including Android, and 4x faster than any other camera app on iOS.
To put the speed in perspective, SnappyCam is about 4X faster than the normal iPhone 5 Camera app, and more than twice as quick as the Samsung Galaxy S4’s 7.5 shots per second. Papandriopoulos claims that other iOS camera apps built for speed like FastCamera, Camera Awesome and Camera+ often degrade photos to 0.3-megapixel postage stamps when they try to get up to 30fps, and can only do around 4fps at full resolution.
On Hacker News, Papandriopoulos describes some of the JPEG work that he did in order to achieve these speeds. It’s a great app: you can essentially shoot full-photo-resolution video and then pick out the one frame where everyone simultaneously has open eyes and a smile.
Update (2014-01-04): Josh Constine (via Jordan Golson):
Apple has acquired the one-man photo technology startup SnappyLabs, maker of SnappyCam, sources tell me. The startup was founded and run solely by John Papandriopoulos, an electrical engineering PhD from the University Of Melbourne who invented a way to make the iPhone’s camera take full-resolution photos at 20 to 30 frames per second — significantly faster than Apple’s native iPhone camera.
Sounds good to me. SnappyCam worked faster than the built-in Camera app, but there was no way to make it replace the built-in app.
