Apple sure is busy these days. News recently broke that Apple might acquire Beats, launch the iPhone 6 as early as August and improve its iPhone camera. Now it seems that we know exactly who will be helping Apple improve the iPhone camera for the foreseeable future and his name is Ari Partinen.
Partinen has worked for Nokia since 2007 as the "Lumia Photography Lead at Nokia." He is the mind behind Nokia's incredibly successful PureView camera technology and was the leading force behind camera improvements on all Nokia Lumia smartphones. Seeing as Nokia's Lumia lineup has some of the best quality camera hardware and software out there, Partinen is definitely the man for the job.
On LinkedIn, Partinen described his role at Nokia in the following words:
"Working in the fields of mobile photography, image quality verification, verification up-streaming, 3rd party management and collaboration, supplier collaboration and technical marketing in various multimedia segments."
He also added that his current work is "with image quality characterization and tuning on camera module level." Now, he will be bringing that skill set to Apple. Partinen made the announcement on Twitter:
Today will be my last day working for the amazing #Lumia family. In June I will start a new chapter in Cupertino, California. Much love!
— Ari Partinen (@Partinen) May 9, 2014
Partinen later confirmed that the above mentioned Cupertino company is indeed Apple. It will most likely be his job to improve the iPhone camera and to make it the best it can be. However, neither Apple nor Partinen have confirmed what his job title or function will be.
Although the iPhone camera has stuck stubbornly at 8-megapixels, while competitors such as Samsung, HTC and Nokia bumped up their smartphone camera resolutions up to 13, 16 and even 41-megapixels, the iPhone's camera still takes very high-quality shots.
Nonetheless, Apple clearly wants to amp up the quality of ts camera hardware. Just this week, reports indicated that Apple has plans to improve the iPhone camera with new auto-focus components and more. Surely now that Partinen is on board, Apple will come up with an incredible camera for future iPhone models.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has lost the main man behind the Nokia Luma lineup's great camera technology. Luckily for Microsoft, Partinen wasn't alone in designing PureView technology. Nonetheless, it is a blow for Microsoft's mobile plans.
