Interview with Scalado

Ok, so there’s been a time since our last interview, but we are clearly determined to not let this side down. Indeed, this time we have a great surprise for you, someone who works in one of those companies which are always in the background developing technology that we will only be able to see in action later, conveniently chewed by manufacturers. We like to think of them as the F1 of device development. Maybe you haven’t ever heard of them before but, who did hear about Nvidia or Intel years before they started to put their logo everywhere? To let you have a rough idea, the zero time shutter pics that some manufacturers brag so much about, is Scalado’s.

Scalado staff works along with big manufacturers, and their tech uses to be already implemented in devices. In this case, Scalado is specialized in device camera software. We had the chance of talking with Fadi Abbas (Co-founder, CMO and General Manager APAC) about not only Scalado itself, but also about some more general topics we thought you could be interested in or, flat truth incoming, we had curiosity about. It might seem he’s a man of few words, but truth is that I was such a meddler instead.

– Tell us about Scalado, so our readers know who you are, though I’m pretty sure that you’ll be well-known soon by our Android users.

Scalado, a Swedish company, have been delivering mobile imaging solutions (camera, album, editing etc.) directly to mobile phone manufactures (OEM, ODM, platform, sensor, operators etc.) for over 12 years with products and technologies integrated/installed/embedded in over 1,2 billion mobile phones to date (500+ million each year right now). The majority of the readers already have Scalado in their devices.

– Where does your name come from?

Scalado (Scalad O) means I do something with courage and high will. Also the word is used in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

- Recently, it seems that there’s a lot of cool stuff coming from Northern Europe. Is that a coincidence?

A reason is the innovative environment, with governments and universities support, in Sweden and the northern countries. People with clever ideas have all chances to succeed realizing their ideas e.g. Spotify, Skype, Minecraft, etc.. Also there is a long tradition of inventing and building big companies such as IKEA, H&M, Ericsson, etc. Scalado is a big innovator and cultivator of the mobile imaging industry since the finding of this term. Our contribution to the imaging industry is already beyond what any digital still camera can do, just look at our latest innovative use cases/apps such as Remove and Rewind.

- Indeed, you’ve just landed on Android with Scalado Album, which got a great 4/5 score being only a picture browser.

It might happen that Album could be part of any other released application from us. It is not possible to find a faster, cleaner and easier album viewing than our Album on any device. People usually change devices e.g. iPhone to Android or vice versa to get the best integrated application on this or that. We are making it easier and cheaper for them to keep their device by installing a better Album than the default one they have on their or on any other device.

- Let’s go back to Scalado’s Rewind and Remove. When will we have them on our Android?

We have gotten overwhelming feedbacks on Rewind and Remove. Rewind lets users take the perfect group shot every time and it’s in fact already shipped in millions of phones with other names but same functionality.

Remove lets users remove everything moving in an image. We are getting a lot of positive feedbacks since we firstly showed it at Mobile World Congress early this year.

As mentioned, Rewind is already into commercially released devices and is coming in new devices as well as Remove. We will let you know if they are coming to an app market close to you (big smile)

- Talking about MWC12 at Barcelona, when we went there, LG was showing awesome Android devices with 3D cameras. Are you into 3D or it’s a passing craze?

3D hasn’t really taken off as it was expected. We have 3D technologies: e.g. our Multi-Angle application which we showed during MWC early this year. It lets users make a 3D version of a face or an object and then display it on a 2d screen by tilting the screen to view the object in different angles.

- It seems that Scalado Vision is your great long term project. If Scalado Vision would be the near future, what may we expect later? What do you dream of?

The future of imaging should go hand in hand with good and simple user experience to get the best possible picture out of the devices. This could be done directly using intelligent cameras, this can be done by enabling intelligent capturing features, post capturing, post enhancements, remove and adjustments, etc…

It is really nice to come home, watch your pictures on your TV screen and easily delete a person in one of your picture by swipe your finger on the screen. Think about coming to a restaurant, watch your picture on the table while eating and share with friends.

- That would be great. Thank you, Mr. Abbas. Any last words for our Android readers?

It is time that all companies working and making money of images (the users images) think about the good experience we want as users. It is a pain maintaining our picture independently on if they are on our phones, PCs, or a social network, etc… We have a user the rights to view, see, re-edit, re-capture and re-share our pictures at any time and from any screen.

Help each other making the decision of having the best imaging applications on your devices by downloading our fantastic applications, because you only deserve the best. Keep it up.

Learn more about Scalado’s Album, thanks to our own review on it. In addition, don’t miss these wonderful videos about Rewind, Remove and Vision.

This interview was conducted by our EiC, Peter, who is a geek smartphonographer.