On Twitter, Ari Partinen, a senior camera engineer at Nokia, has confirmed that he is leaving Nokia for Apple. The hire was first spotted by Engadget. Apple’s iPhone cameras are regarded as some of the best in the market, but Nokia’s PureView cameras have also been widely praised, which can produce pictures up to 38 megapixels in size.
The significance of the hire is a bit unclear. Partinen’s current title is ‘Lumia Photography Lead’ and has been in that role for roughly a year. His LinkedIn profile says he specialises in image quality and camera module tuning. Partinen is credited as one of the authors of a paper on PureView’s technology, which captures more megapixels than the target size, in order to improve image quality.
Partinen is also credited on this Lumia 1020 document, which details how the PureView technology works in a less-technical fashion. Before his Lumia position, Partinen led camera imaging at Nokia as ‘Senior Design Engineer’ since March 2007. Partinen says he will start at Apple next month. His new seniority and position at Apple are not yet known, although — given his previous job — it seems likely he will work on future iPhone cameras.
@bharadc23 Thank you for great discussions and feedback! (And it is the company you are thinking assuming you are thinking Apple) =)
— Ari Partinen (@Partinen) May 9, 2014
