How Nokia and Microsoft collaborated to create the groundbreaking new Lumia 1020 with Windows Phone 8

This was tweeted by Damian Dinning. It shows what Nokia and Microsoft went through to put the Nokia Lumia 1020 on Windows Phone 8 with that incredible 41MP camera. Many said it could never happen. The 1020 says otherwise.

http://blogs.windows.com/windows_phone/b/windowsphone/archive/2013/07/11/q-amp-a-how-nokia-and-microsoft-collaborated-to-create-the-groundbreaking-new-lumia-1020-with-windows-phone-8.aspx

Belfiore, who recently ‘accidentally’ published photos from the 1020 in advance of the launch, one of which is in this blogpost, says

Nokia came to us with the idea for building this amazing camera, and we had to find the right ways to improve the platform so they could deliver the best imaging experience on any phone, anywhere.

It’s easy for us to moan and say MS are doing jack-shizzle with the platform. Actually, I can’t defend MS as despite the 1020 existing, the rest of the platform needs developing in various areas which it seems Nokia is doing most of the leg work.

It’s still however interesting to read that Nokia is making the Windows Phone team actually do ‘stuff’. Belfiore says the Windows Phone code got some new features to improve zooming capability in the photo viewer.

We know the OS deeply and add that kind of thinking to the mix. So we spent time together working on the architecture so the 1020 camera can capture two images at once—a super high-res shot and an oversampled 5-megapixel version for easier sharing. And we shared early builds of software and hardware so we could give each other feedback on the work in progress—I think I wrote more than 10 pages of feedback myself on the Nokia Pro Camera app as it was being developed.

We also added new features to the Windows Phone code— improving the zoom capability of our photo viewer, for example, so you can zoom in further on a larger-resolution image. A lot of the work we do in Windows Phone is “under the covers”—but the results show both in the killer new phones that have been coming out month after month and in the software that Nokia has delivered on the platform.

Kevin Shield’s chat on Lenses/uploading to facebook/live tiles doesn’t do anything for me.

But later he does talk about the 808:

The notion of putting a sensor that big inside a phone—much less a camera—is a little bit crazy. But the sharpness that it delivered was spectacular.

What you see in the Lumia 1020 is the combination of those two things, and a whole lot more: It has all the benefits of a huge sensor combined with the incredible sharpness of next generation optical image stabilization technology that we spearheaded in the Lumia 920. So the 1020 is bringing together a number of powerful technologies that haven’t been delivered together before. Another key point is that while some DSLRs have sensor technology that’s competitive with what’s in the Nokia Lumia 1020, a DSLR doesn’t have the processing power a Windows Phone has.

Joe chimes in that a DSLR can’t post pictures to facebook or twitter. Perhaps not the Nikon/Canon ones but aren’t Sammy pursuing Android in all their devices? Samsung Galaxy NX?

When asked if the 1020 represents what Nokia was hoping for when partnering with MS, Kevin says:

It’s another milepost on a highway that’s already littered with great mileposts. For example, the optical image stabilization work on the 920 that I just mentioned also required a really deep collaboration, and I’m super proud of how that turned out.

Where does Nokia and MS go from here?

Belfiore says :

Nokia has been a terrific partner in dreaming up innovative new hardware and great services and apps—some you’ve seen and some still to come—and I’m looking forward to more innovative work together on the boundary of hardware and software.

With the push MS has been giving Nokia on the 920 in the US, let’s hope they really do send it flying with the 1020. If they were proud of the imaging in the 920, their heads should explode with the 1020.

Category: Lumia, Nokia