Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has delivered six iPhones to market since 2007. Its seventh–dubbed the iPhone 5S or the iPhone 6 depending on which speculation you prefer–is due out at the end of this year, though that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to upgrade the functionality of existing models.
Much as a Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) Xbox 360 is able to continually achieve added levels of graphical quality as developers’ skills improve, Apple’s smartphone can improve as app developers discover new way to push their hardware limitations.
For those of you who don’t frequent iPhone specs on a daily basis, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iPhone 5 offers users an 8-megapixel “iSight” camera, with the ability to take somewhere in the ballpark of 5 images per second (give or take a couple depending on your setting).
Caption: One technology might be making Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s Tim Cook (left) and Jony Ive (right) very happy right about now.
The iPhone 5’s video recorder, though, offers HD capability of up to 30 frames per second, so wouldn’t it make sense that the camera shutter could move a bit more quickly?
Meet John Papandriopoulos, the developer of SnappyCam, “the fastest smart-phone camera on earth” according to his company SnappyLabs, a San Francisco based startup. With image capture speeds of up to 20 frames per second, in high-definition, the app is truly one of a kind.
But don’t take our word for it, check out the company’s website, which gives plenty of examples of SnappyCam in action, whether it’s a JPEG compilation of your friend swinging on a park swing, or a memorable evening dancing, the iPhone’s camera function can capture that motion in dozens of frames in just a few seconds.
For $0.99, the app is in its third iteration, though total user figures are unknown. All versions of SnappyCam have 97 Ratings, but it’s difficult to make any inferences from that. The point is this: in comparison to Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) or Samsung, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) hasn’t exactly been praised for the quality of its camera on the iPhone, but for less than cost of a candy bar, John Papandriopoulos might have just made Tim Cook’s summer a whole lot better.
Papandriopoulos is from Australia and according to his blog, he has served as a Research Fellow with the ARC Special Research Centre for Ultra-Broadband Information Networks (CUBIN), in the EEE department at University of Melbourne.
Along with Professor Jamie Evans, Papandriopoulos developed Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology that “allows fast broadband network access over regular copper telephone wiring,” and we can assume that the mega-telecoms are intrigued.
What DSL/copper technology means for tech giants like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) or Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) is unclear, but it’s easy to see the impact that SnappyCam has had on the iPhone, and it certainly gives the device a brighter future than it had before.
Will this impact mega-investors’ decisions who hold Apple in their equity portfolios, like David Einhorn or Manish Chopra? The hedge fund space is filled with the world’s smartest researchers, so it’ll be important to watch the titans’ moves.
Disclosure: none
