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Apple Acquires Rapid-Fire Camera App Developer SnappyLabs
- xenonite 13y agoIt is amazing that it is still possible to optimize the compression algorithm for JPEG, a file format that is already over 20 years old.
- fiatmoney 13y agoIt sounds like he didn't optimize the algorithm per se; he optimized the implementation of the algorithm for the particular processor. Still very impressive.
- vonseel 13y ago"Having developed a blazing fast DCT implementation, Huffman then became a bottleneck. We innovated on that portion with tight hand-tuned assembly code that leverages special features of the ARM processor instruction set to make it as fast as possible.” I understood he first optimized the algorithm, then tuned it to be even faster on ARM?
- huxley 13y agoI read it as saying that, after optimizing the DCT (lossy) compression as much as he could, he focused on the Huffman (lossless) encoding phase which gave him further optimization opportunities.
- zafka 13y agoI was amazed the first several times I saw things i thought where old as dirt have amazing improvements made. One of the first was about 10 years ago, when a friend made improvements on lighting ballasts in conjunction with solar work. Now I try to keep my eyes open for these opportunities.
- jmspring 13y agoThe actual standard allows for a variety of options around how the compression portion is handled -- there is the baseline mode and then options for custom huffman tables, etc. The best source for the JPEG Standard -- http://www.amazon.com/JPEG-Compression-Standard-Multimedia-Standards/dp/0442012721 http://www.amazon.com/JPEG-Compression-Standard-Multimedia-S... My memory is a bit fuzzy here, but from what I recall, a friend tried implementing JPEG compression on a parallel system (back in the mid 90s). One of the trouble spots was the reliance on the relationship between blocks regarding prediction of the DC coefficient. One startup I worked at, we had an entropy encoding method that could add 20-30% additional compression just by recording coefficients. Patent here -- http://www.google.com/patents/US6236762 http://www.google.com/patents/US6236762
- raverbashing 13y agoI'm not so sure about it, but lossy compression algorithms are usually "non deterministic" and what I mean by that is that there is a target format to encode to, but you have some variation in how you're turning the original data into that So there's a lot of room in optimising the process
- sergiotapia 13y agoMajor congratulations to him! What an achievement! I wonder though: in these situations if he were to refuse the acquisition would Apple just steal his idea (NOT implementation) and bake it into the iPhone regardless? I think Microsoft did something like this, no? Any thoughts?
- jakobe 13y agoI don't think that this is something he would need to worry about. Implementing complex algorithms is extremely difficult, even if you have detailed instructions (eg. from a published paper). I've read his website before and if I remember, he only published high level details. To steal his ideas, you'd need to have a similar background, and you'd need to know just as much about compression etc. as he does. And even if you found someone with the right expertise, it would still take a very long time to "steal" an idea like this.
- michaelt 13y agoWhen you're coming up with a new idea, you often have to go down a bunch of dead-end alleys and you're not even sure if what you're attempting is possible. When you're reimplementing an existing product you know exactly the right avenue to go down, and you know for sure it's possible. And Apple has over a hundred billion dollars in cash and eighty thousand employees. They could certainly clone this software if they wanted to. The reason to acquire is to signal to other people that doing innovative things on apple platforms can make you a millionaire, instead of signalling the same thing is a sucker's game as apple will steal your ideas if they're any good.
- alttab 13y agoOr a patent on the process. That changes negotiations significantly.
- sdesol 13y ago"you often have to go down a bunch of dead-end alleys and you're not even sure if what you're attempting is possible." This is my biggest worry with my product. I literally spent two years going down dead-end alleys to refine my Information Flow Control System because there was nobody that I could copy from. We often hear "Ideas are worthless. It's the execution that matters." which is true but knowing what does and doesn't work is as important in my opinion. Apple now knows you can capture video very efficiently with JPEG. People now know, if you want to build a powerful social media product, you'll have to use real names and so forth. I can't back this up with citations as I don't remember where I read this from, but it basically said innovators are usually not the ones that benefits from their innovations. It's usually those that tweaks the innovations that benefit the most. I guess the message is, if you do have something innovative, you should probably patent it. You might not be able to protect yourself from larger companies, but you'll certainly improve your chances of being acquired.
- applecore 13y agoThis is great for all iPhone users, and a much better outcome than had a company like Facebook or Snapchat acquired them.
- buro9 13y agoWhy? If Facebook acquired this then the technology would be accessible to a far greater audience than just the users of Apple products. Seems to me that we should want advances in technology (software or hardware) to benefit the greatest number of users possible, and with Apple owning this it now restricts this method to only those who use Apple products. Oh, just noticed your username. Edit: Being downvoted? Do I have to do the defensive thing of pointing out I own Apple products too?
- jhales 13y agoAgree with your general thesis, but it seems that the tech is for the iPhone specifically, not cameras in general.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- manmal 13y agoYou seem to imply that this kind of performance tuning would carry over to Android, via a Java/NDK bridge? I sincerely doubt that this would yield results as good as SnappyCam.
- themartorana 13y agoGood for him! The app is a bit of technical marvel. I love playing with it, and now that Apple has it, hopefully the UX will improve a bit in whatever way they decide to implement the core tech. Wins all around!
- vonseel 13y agoThis is one of those stories that makes me so happy. It's nice to see someone's hard work pay off.
- ShaneOG 13y agoHuge congratulations in order. This sounds like a real success story!
- sabalaba 13y agoFor those interested in the technical details, the original blog post is archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20131010012005/http://www.snappylabs.com/blog/snappycam/2013/07/31/iphone-king-of-speed/ https://web.archive.org/web/20131010012005/http://www.snappy... I wonder why they took it down.
- wmf 13y agoApple takes down everything in an acquisition. In general Apple rarely admits that the past or future exists at all.
- proksoup 13y agoApple is a strange mix of buddhism and 1984. Middle path, present focused, to an extreme, enforced on you whether you want it or not :)
- panacea 13y agoI know you're not supposed to bore anyone by recounting dreams, but the other night I dreamt my MacBook had a virus which booted into Win975.
- asveikau 13y agoThat reminds me of something I read once on Apple's website one day, that seemed to suggest Apple invented CUPS in 1997. They hired the developer and bought the rights in 2007, so it's fair to say it's theirs, but it was worded as if this was always so.
- runewell 13y agoCool, hopefully they open source this code sooner rather than later. Obviously they are probably going to keep it as a competitive advantage for the next batch of iOS devices but I hope they open it up shortly after that.
- qntmfred 13y agowhat took so long?
- chenster 13y agoWhen I first heard about the SnappyCam that is capable of taking blazing fast photos using a regular photo cam, I immediately purchased a copy and experimented with it. Not only it doesn't everything it claims (essentially a breakthrough in super optimized image compression) but also the UI is well thought. At the time, I was certain that it's just a matter of time to get Apple's attention and very likely Apple would want to acquire the technology. Kudo to Papandriopoulos (How do you exactly pronounce that??) What I'd like to add that, it apparently SnappyCam would only make sense on iPhone 5 or lower. That is because iPhone 5S already can do what SnappyCam does in its native Cam app by holding down the shoot button. Perhaps Apple got other ideas for its use in the future.
- hobs 13y agoI think you may want to do a wee bit of editing, because I assume you meant: "Not only it doesn't everything it claims" -> "Not only does it do everything it claims" "but also the UI is well thought" -> "but also the UI is well thought out" pap andria polous
- chenster 13y agoWish I could, but I don't see the edit button. :(
- wyager 13y ago>That is because iPhone 5S already can do what SnappyCam does in its native Cam app by holding down the shoot button. Wow! I had no idea! That's very cool. I was also very impressed with the 5S's slo-mo capture. It's exceptional quality for 120fps.
- krashidov 13y agoCan somebody remind me if this was originally a Show HN post? I think I vaguely remember the app creator talking about it.
- citruspi 13y agoThere was this[0]. The author of SnappyCam made some comments under the username jpap. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6137979 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6137979
- scanr 13y agoExcellent prediction by Oculus: > I have a feeling that soon SnappyLabs is going to have Apple knocking on their door with a very nice offer. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6138278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6138278
- lelandbatey 13y agoI don't remember a Show HN post, but I do remember it being a popular post and the title mentioning "10,000 lines of hand tuned assembly".
- runewell 13y agoWill this tech improve live video streams?
- wmf 13y agoNot directly, but this guy could probably do some good work if you let him loose on a video codec.
- ececconi 13y agoThat guys work is amazing. I saw snappycam before and didn't bother downloading it or looking into it. Now I'm reading up about it and it seems absolutely amazing. I can't wait to see how this technology is implemented in future iPhones.
- semerda 13y agoAussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi!!! Congrats to John Papandriopoulos! Very impressive work.. also the amount of work that went into it is wow!! .. "The final implementation comprises nearly 10,000 lines of hand-tuned assembly code, and over 20,000 lines of low-level C code. (In comparison, the SnappyCam app comprises almost 50,000 lines of Objective C code.)"
- gdubs 13y agoInspiring story on a bunch of levels, but in particular it's great to see the payoff of focus directed at a hard problem.
- interpol_p 13y agoWhy is a buyout like this reason for celebration and congratulations? I understand that the developers received money; but now they no longer own their IP, and can no longer decide the future path for their software. I say this as someone who was contacted by a VC firm recently. They were interested in investing, but their assumption was that we wanted to grow and "exit". When I asked for clarification on what "exit" meant, I was told that it means to sell the company. I was confused as to why someone would want to sell something they spent so many years creating. (That said, I think in this case their tech will genuinely improve Apple's software. And maybe they get to continue doing passionate work at Apple. It just feels like they are no longer in control.)
- dippyskoodlez 13y agoHe may be more interested in furthering his career not by making large piles of money, but by being an engineer working on fantastic new products. I would certainly call that congratulatory worthy.
- interpol_p 13y agoI guess so, it's just that his direction under Apple will not be his own. Perhaps he will be allowed to work on whatever he wants, even if it's risky or experimental? If that was part of the nature of the deal, then I could see it being quite attractive.
- dippyskoodlez 13y agoThat's a bold assumption about a company that has traditionally held creativity to a higher standard than most. Innovation shapes Apple, Apple does not shape innovation.
- ZeroGd 13y agoGreat for the guy, but this screws customers of his app. SnappyCam made animated GIFs of your snaps. I highly doubt Apple's native camera app will ever do that. Now that the app is gone, this royally sucks and is a fat middle finger to IMGUR and Reddit's communities that produced animated GIFs using SnappyCam.
- oh_sigh 13y agoThen write your own version of it. You have no right to demand an app stay for sale when the developer doesn't want to sell it.
- alok-g 13y agoI am confused. Is it that the transfer speed was limited by the compression algorithm rather than the speed at which the images can be retrieved from the photo sensor array? I had assumed it is the latter.
- ghshephard 13y agoIf we can believe that jpap told us the entire story, It's the former. He never mentioned modifying, in any way, the mechanism by which images were retrieved from the photo sensor array, just how he compressed and saved them. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010474 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010474
- smackfu 13y agoSince Apple already has this as an advertised feature in the 5S, I see this as one part acquihire, one part locking up tech so it can't be used on other platforms.
- muglug 13y agoI wonder how this ties into Apple's other recent acquisitions - if I remember correctly, they recently purchased a company that was mounting depth sensors on iPads. Fast image processing is central to usable 3d augmented reality interfaces, and Apple might be planning ahead for 2015's iOS innovations.
- pervycreeper 13y agoI wonder if any of the money geniuses on here would care to speculate on what a deal like this would be worth.
- abozzelli 13y agoShameless spam: my app push the limit in the opposite direction, I hope Apple acquires it too. http://www.alfonsobozzelli.com/thomas/ http://www.alfonsobozzelli.com/thomas/