“What has pepper got to do with pictures,” you ask? Then you’ll probably be even more puzzled when I talk about the months of September and December and technology companies in the same context. Ok, ok! Hold your horses and let me explain…

Around about September last year (2010) a company called “Pepper.pk” launched a photo editor for Blackberry phones, aptly titled “Photo Editor”.

This editor allows you to quickly and easily edit and optimize images right from your blackberry device, without having to transfer them to a PC first. In addition to the usual editing options, the application also allows people to add special effects and share their edited pictures with their friends.

This application was so popular among Blackberry users that within a span of approximately 3 months (i.e. by December 2010) it became the best-selling application for Blackberry devices in the world, across ALL categories.

Yes… That’s a big deal!

“Ok… so there are lots of best-selling applications for Blackberry devices in the world” you say, “what’s so great about this one?” And I answer, “But Pepper.pk is a Pakistani company and the Photo Editor application was developed from scratch at their office in Lahore!”

In a world where the terms IT, software and technology have become synonymous with giants such as Apple, Microsoft, or Adobe, this relatively small (and young) company from Pakistan has stolen the roost from all of them and proven that size does NOT matter.

It’s not just because I happen to be bit of a patriot that I’m lauding this achievement, but being a Pakistani I understand the hurdles that companies from Pakistan (especially IT companies) face in the international arena. Just beating applications like Facebook to make it to the top spot is a huge achievement for any company.

A bit about the Company

Based out of Lahore, Pepper.pk is a company that specializes in apps for mobile phones; specifically the Blackberry, the iPhone, the Pre, Windows Mobile phones and also J2ME devices.

Their suite of applications consists of games, lifestyle applications, and of course photo editors and other related applications. If you wish, you can check out their entire menu of applications right on their site, pepper.pk.

By the looks of it, pepper.pk is a young, vibrant and innovative company, evident by the following statement on their site:

“Each and every member of our team is super passionate about mobility, smartphones and the fact that these exciting new devices represent the future of computing. We want to be an important part of that future.”

The Pepper.pk ‘Photo Editor’ App Features

With so many excellent and super-useful features, it’s no wonder that the Pepper’s “Photo Editor” app is a winner with more than a million downloads. The following are just a few of the cool things you can do with this best-selling app:

  • Crop and re-size pictures, including reducing image size
  • Rotate pictures
  • Adjust picture brightness and contrast
  • Change or invert image colors (sepia, pop, black and white)
  • Re-color pictures
  • Save and send edited pictures in an email
  • Add frames to pictures
  • Add text to pictures
  • Add special effects
  • Draw lines and shapes of different colors in pictures… you know, give your sister that mustache she’s always wanted ;o)

I personally am very proud to say that achievements such as these are proof enough that Pakistani IT companies (and we as Pakistani’s) have still got it baby! And though there’s a lot of competition in the industry, and the Pakistani IT industry still has miles to go to catch up with the rest, it has also come a long way!