Ex-Nokia Lumia imaging guru to bump Microsoft Surface camera quality

Nokia invested a lot in imaging what enabled its phones to climb at the top of smartphone photography. What Nokia also got was a set of skilled and capable imaging engineers and gurus like Juha Alakarhu, Eero Salmelin, or Ari Partinen, which were responsible for the great imaging quality of Lumia devices. After the collapse of Nokia’s Devices and Services Department, Juha and Eero stayed in Microsoft for a while, but soon after, they went to other companies where they continued working in the imaging sector.

Ari Partinen got picked up immediately by Apple and helped them improve the imaging capabilities of iPhone devices. It doesn’t necessarily have to be connected with Ari’s arrival to Apple, but after he came there, Apple announced iPhone 7 and 8, which got really good cameras unlike some models before.

Anyway, Ari left Apple back in 2018 and continued working in imaging quality and testing, but now he is back in the consumer business once again. He just tweeted that he started working for Microsoft as a part of the Microsoft Surface imaging team where he will be Director of Imaging. This is exciting news for Ari, and also great to hear that Microsoft will be improving the imaging quality of its future surface device or devices. This could mean that Microsoft is working on a surface smartphone then…

First day in Microsoft Surface imaging team. Very exciting times ahead! #Microsoft #Surface

— Ari Partinen (@Partinen) March 1, 2021

I had a chance of meeting Ari at one afterparty organized by Nokia during MWC2014, and he is such a cool and experienced guy that will help Microsoft improve the Surface. I know another company where he could put his skills to test 🙂