Polaroid

Helping Polaroid transform pixels into real-life pictures with AR

Expertise

iOS & Android development

Platforms

Mobile

Industry

Lifestyle

The Polaroid Lab transforms smartphone-taken pictures into real-life Polaroid photos. It needed a fast and stable application to satisfy thousands of users worldwide.

The client

Polaroid, previously Polaroid Originals, has now finally reclaimed its legendary name. As a brand they’re devoted to instant photography in its original iconic format. They launched five instant analog cameras and recently, a completely new product revolutionizing the market of instant photography, the Polaroid Lab.

The challenge

After the success of OneStep+ camera, the team needed to enhance the Polaroid app to unveil the potential of their newest product, the Polaroid Lab.

Custom photo collages

The app is capable of dividing one digital image into separate sections to enable users to print out a collage from up to 9 frames. This is possible thanks to the custom coordinate-aware view component that calculates the needed frame space without distorting the photo’s proportions or ratio.

AR scanning to save and share memories

Apart from supporting the features of the Polaroid Lab and the One Step+ camera, the app has some real gems hidden inside. Thanks to our AR scanning, users are able not only to save the printed Polaroids in the gallery on their phone, but also enhance their photos with film by scanning a special barcode preprinted on the Lab photos.

Statistics behind the Polaroid app

44k

Active users of the app

364

Releases to Google Play

99,5%

Crash-free users

1679

Automated tests

Custom ICC profiles

The app’s heart and brain lies in the custom ICC profiles and tailor-made color management. There was no way the photos could look as if they were “scanned” or “reprinted”. We needed to implement the ICC profiles from scratch, so that they look just as good as the real Polaroids.

Tailor-made data buffering system

Hitting more than 140k of user downloads, the Polaroid Originals app could not be slow. We developed our own data buffering system to prevent user crashes and cut the buffering in case of memory shortage.

For us working with EL Passion means to have a committed partner who is constantly proving to deliver a great mobile experience for the global market.

James Tjan

Product Manager @ Polaroid