Happy snaps!

John Papandriopoulos, developer of the fastest smartphone camera app in the world, talks about his early days of IT in Australia and now in Silicone Valley


John Papandriopoulos was 12-years-old when discovered this “cool book” in the library. It was a listing of code in the BASIC programming language. Each code listing was a small text-based game; type out the code, debug and run it and then play the game. He was instantly hooked.
For the past five years, the founder of Snappy Labs has been living in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, USA. His company Snappy Labs – where he works as the only contributor – developed SnappyCam, the fastest smartphone camera app on earth. SnappyCam brings DSLR-like continuous shooting to the iPhone: you just hold down the button and SnappyCam will capture a burst of photos so you can choose the best one, or keep the entire sequence as a ‘living photo’, where you can interactively scrub through the sequence to see every detail, every gesture.
“What makes SnappyCam remarkable is its ability to capture at high-resolution at speed,” John tells Neos Kosmos.
“On the iPhone 5, for example, SnappyCam can shoot 8 Mpx photos (the maximum full-sensor resolution) at up to 20 pictures/sec. That is possible because of some new innovations in image signal processing that I developed for the iPhone, leveraging my very practical undergraduate education with the theoretical training from the PhD.”
He says SnappyCam is particularly useful for mums and dads taking photos of kids who never seem to sit still, or pets or sports.
“I use it for everyday photography, because it’s now trivial to get ‘the shot’. I’ve had people use it for analysis of their golf swing and softball coaches for similar reasons. One fellow out near Perth uses it to photograph lightening for the enjoyment of his Facebook friends.”
And now, with the launch of the iPhone 5S, people are already comparing SnappyCam to their Burst Mode feature, capable of capturing up to 10 pictures/sec at 8 Mpx.
“I can’t wait to try it out,” says John who adds he is lucky enough to have a great relationship with the global tech giant Apple.
“People are of course already comparing the iPhone 5S Burst Mode with SnappyCam. It is kind of remarkable to think that SnappyCam today can shoot up to 2x the speed on the older generation iPhone 5, and just slightly faster at 12 pictures/sec on the older iPhone 4S. All of that in a software app that sells for less than the price of a coffee.”
John grew up in Melbourne, to migrant parents from Greece. He says he had a “good Greek upbringing”, attending Greek school and benefiting from his mother’s “very Greek ways and cooking”.
“All my friends love my Greek salad [in San Francisco] and I’m always on the lookout for good Greek imported olive oil and feta. I can’t live without Kalamata olives,” says the Greek Australian.
His love of all things tech, he says, was inherited from his father, who was an electronics engineer in the Greek Army.
After his initial introduction, the then teenager began working on mini projects. An electronic diary to record his daily chronicles, then to a primitive ‘paint’ program where he could draw simple graphics using the keyboard.
“When I learnt how to connect electronics to the computer, and control it through the joystick and printer ‘ports’, I was really hooked,” he says.
“That set me up precisely for where I am today, with feet firmly in the digital world.”
He says he was lucky as a youngster knowing what he wanted to do with his life at an early age.
After graduating from Melbourne High School in 1996, he undertook a double-degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at RMIT University.
“I might have been the only student to ever have collected the Dean’s Award for the top overall Engineering student for all five years in a row, in amongst the many other awards I received each year. The highest honour was when I received the J N McNicol Prize (University Medal) for the top graduating student across the entire university after graduation,” he says.
Even though he was sought after by prospective employees, John decided upon a PhD candidature with the University of Melbourne. His research involved existing and new mathematical techniques to optimise telecommunication networks. Alongside the university, John filed four patents on his techniques to make DSL broadband faster – later selling them all to Ericsson AB.
To him, high technology is the only way to go and inspires him every day because “it’s always evolving as our understanding of the world is constantly improving”.
“With it are advances in related theoretical techniques and physical embodiments that lead to a kind of ‘turbo effect’. There’s never a shortage of things to work on, topics to investigate, products to create, and innovations to be had – never a dull day in technology.”
He says he finds it equally rewarding solving a difficult technical challenge that involves dedication and skill.
“Seeing your own creation in the hands of people who both use and love the product is like nothing else,” he says of the final product.
“There aren’t many disciplines like engineering and science, where your work could one day quite literally change the world.”
For John, it seems he is set in Silicone Valley. Around him are a great support network of people who are on a similar path of building products and a company.
“There’s an amazing community here in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, where that kind of activity is a part of everyday life,” he says, but adds that “if an entrepreneur has motivation and absolute dedication, then their goals and dreams can be achieved from just about anywhere”.
For more information on John and his company, visit www.snappylabs.com