The future of Xiaomi's imaging "top chef".

Author|Wang Chi

Editor|Yang Zhou

[City Image] has learned that personnel changes are still ongoing at Xiaomi.

Several Xiaomi employees stated that Wang Xuanran, the head of the camera department, is currently on leave. Some sources close to Xiaomi also revealed that changes will occur after his leave ends.

As of press time, Xiaomi has not responded to the above information.

It is worth mentioning that as Xiaomi's 26th employee, Wang Xuanran can be considered a founding member of Xiaomi. He graduated with a master's degree in computer science from Tsinghua University in 2007 and joined Microsoft Asia Engineering Group the same year. He joined Xiaomi in July 2010, engaging in Android development and leading the MiChat Android development team. In 2015, he began serving as the Director of MIUI Developer Ecosystem Business.

In 2017, Wang Xuanran joined Xiaomi's VR business. In 2018, Xiaomi established a separate camera department, and he was one of the first imaging technology talents to be transferred. He has held key positions such as software algorithm development, Deputy General Manager, and General Manager within Xiaomi's camera department, truly embodying a core employee throughout its development.

Over his 14-year career at Xiaomi, almost half of it has been spent in the camera department. During his tenure, Xiaomi's camera team has grown from an initial 26 members to a current team of 2,000, introducing a large number of imaging experts and delving into various specialized fields. Simultaneously, multiple R&D teams have been established both domestically and internationally.

Regarding this change, some Xiaomi employees speculate that it may be related to the poor consumer feedback on Xiaomi phone cameras in the past six months.

01 Is the Camera Lagging Due to the Blame Game?

"There has been limited internal discussion on this matter, with one theory being that the top executives are dissatisfied with the camera algorithm project," guessed a Xiaomi employee about this change.

This speculation is not unfounded, as there have been numerous complaints about Xiaomi cameras on social media platforms. For example, in a highly upvoted post, a user wrote, "Yesterday's sunset in Beijing was so beautiful, but Xiaomi's camera only captured the original image for a split second before the algorithm optimized it into a blue sky and white clouds, truly reverse optimization."

In the post's comparison images, the sky was still a yellow sunset during the photo preview, but after taking the photo, it was optimized by the algorithm to show a blue sky and white clouds. Some photography enthusiasts suggested that the algorithm might have inaccurately recognized the scene, not realizing that the user wanted to capture the sunset sky, resulting in the erroneous optimization to a blue sky and white clouds.

This is not an isolated incident, as there have been numerous internal complaints about poor color optimization in certain scenarios.

"External feedback goes unnoticed, and internal feedback is ineffective. Often, responses are generic, such as 'this is not a bug,' 'there are too many colors in the image,' or 'this is an industry-wide challenge,' which do not address the root problem," said a Xiaomi employee who had provided feedback on such issues. Later, they had to turn off the AI mode and use the professional mode for manual photography.

If the algorithm is not user-friendly, one can turn off the AI mode and make do. However, if the camera lags, it's a more serious issue.

"The camera is the pre-installed app with the most bugs and the slowest performance," internally complained a Xiaomi employee, becoming a consensus among many within the company. After all, nearly 20,000 Xiaomi employees are also users of Xiaomi phones to a large extent. As evidence, posts complaining about Xiaomi camera lags often receive numerous likes and comments.

A similar situation is also playing out in the Xiaomi community. Some Xiaomi fans have posted, "The camera on the 13 Pro lags significantly, and the imaging brain is completely useless. It takes a long time to process photos, and handheld imaging takes more than 2 seconds; otherwise, it's completely blurry. Restarting the phone can solve the issue temporarily, but it recurs soon after."

The so-called imaging brain refers to Xiaomi's underlying imaging architecture technology released in 2021. It has since been upgraded to the Xiaomi Imaging AISP large-scale model computational photography platform. Regarding the lags, some tech bloggers have previously speculated that the large model may be consuming too much phone computing power, and the processor performance of older phone models may not keep up.

Earlier, in February, when the MiUI 14 update was first rolled out, another type of lag occurred where the camera could not connect directly. At that time, requesting a Google Camera installation package in the Xiaomi community became a form of mutual assistance for older phone models to take photos. However, the official response was that this issue would be resolved in the September update.

In the camera circle of the Xiaomi community, the official operators even specifically compiled a list of 29 common faults and issues into a pinned column for users encountering similar problems to quickly identify and locate the cause of the issue. However, feedback on issues under these two columns continues to grow.

02 A Dignified Parting is Xiaomi's Convention

There is no doubt that Xiaomi's camera issues are visible both internally and externally, but only the camera department knows who will solve them and how.

Regarding the reasons for Wang Xuanran's change, some Xiaomi employees believe it cannot be solely attributed to this.

"If the project is genuinely performing poorly, the primary responsibility should fall on the algorithm leader or the corresponding deputy general manager of the project. As the general manager, it's reasonable for him to take responsibility, but it's not to the extent that he should resign due to one project," they said.

Zhang Duo, who recently returned to Xiaomi to head the Xiaomi AI platform, had previously expressed similar thoughts in a post-mortem reflection on his departure from Xiaomi on Zhihu.

Regarding changes, he reflected in his post-mortem, "Other directors have directly given me feedback that they feel the department is no longer a place where work can be done effectively. Other colleagues from secondary departments have also come to me directly to complain and ask for advice. So, I directly approached the newly appointed top executive after the organizational restructuring to press for changes..."

After a round of efforts, the top executive was unwilling, and even provided feedback to the organization department suggesting a job transfer for him. Ultimately, Zhang Duo chose to resign.

In hindsight, regarding workplace rules in large companies, he believed, "I've actually done similar things in previous companies, which is to escalate issues to higher-level executives and wait for them to handle my current boss. It was successful in previous companies, but this time it obviously failed. The situation is different at Xiaomi this time. Although the department has 1,000 people, the entire company has 20,000 employees. The decisions made by the top executive I approached need to consider both upward and lateral relationships. For example, one has to consider whether this person has any connections with even higher-level executives. Adjustments might offend someone, so one must necessarily proceed with caution."

The market advantages brought by organizational scaling inevitably come at the cost of losing flexibility in organizational structure. With a larger team, personnel changes are no longer just about individual capabilities but rather a comprehensive organizational balance of various factors.

"As a 14-year veteran of Xiaomi, he (Wang Xuanran) has progressively risen from team leader, director, and deputy R&D general manager to general manager. From technology to management, he has truly worked his way up from the grassroots level. His technical skills and abilities are undoubtedly strong. However, as a Tsinghua scholar with financial freedom, there's no need for him to endure such hardships. A dignified parting is also warranted," summarized a Xiaomi employee.

A dignified parting has always been Xiaomi's convention. Since its inception, Xiaomi has undergone at least three major organizational changes in 2018, 2019, and 2021. The founding team that originally drank porridge together is now almost non-existent, but there have been virtually no conflicts over personnel changes.

03 Who Will Lead Xiaomi's Imaging Efforts?

Before going on leave, according to publicly available market information, Wang Xuanran's last public speech was at the "2024 Xiaomi Leica Imaging Contest · Hong Kong Season" humanistic theme special photography event on June 26th of this year.

This event was jointly launched by Xiaomi and the Hong Kong Tourism Board. During the event, he stated, "Xiaomi has never stopped pursuing the ultimate in imaging. Hong Kong embodies a diverse and inclusive spirit, blending Chinese and Western cultures, tradition with modernity. Its rich historical heritage and conveyed humanistic care coincide with the spiritual core that the Xiaomi Leica Imaging Contest has always advocated and pursued."

With this change among Xiaomi's imaging veterans, it may cast uncertainty over Xiaomi's imaging competitiveness in the industry.

Regarding the imaging competition in the mobile phone industry, Liu Zuohu, Vice President of OPPO, once summarized, "For breakthroughs in imaging, hardware contributes 40%, and algorithms contribute 60%." In his view, with the end of the hardware bonus period, competing on parameters has become a homogenized competition. In the future battle for mobile phone imaging, the focus will still be on algorithms.

In fact, imaging algorithms are nothing new. They have roughly gone through two stages: In the first stage, mobile phone imaging hardware capabilities were limited. The main optimization focus of computational imaging at this time was to brighten very dark scenes and present distant objects through AI algorithms. However, there was also controversy, such as over-beautification when taking pictures of the moon.

The second stage involved competing on pixel parameters. After the end of the hardware bonus period, the hardware available to mainstream manufacturers became largely similar. At this time, reverse customizing hardware based on algorithms (self-developed imaging chips) and establishing a full-link AI imaging system became the new competition. Algorithms became the link between hardware and systems, creating differentiated imaging styles.

Regarding the current competition, the mobile phone data agency IDC summarized that the convergence of imaging hardware places greater emphasis on algorithmic confrontations among brands, including the integration and adaptation of self-developed imaging chips with operating systems and full-link AI algorithmic capabilities. In other words, top-tier hardware ingredients also require top-tier cooking skills, and the top-tier cooking skills for imaging are algorithms.

Wang Xuanran is precisely Xiaomi's top imaging "chef." In 2020, Lin Bin, Xiaomi's co-founder, expressed high praise for his imaging algorithm capabilities, "Within two years of joining Xiaomi's camera department, he began responsible for the software algorithm development of Xiaomi cameras. The technological progress of Xiaomi's imaging in these two years is inseparable from the contributions of this team."

As a core member of Xiaomi's imaging algorithms, Wang Xuanran has successively brought multiple Xiaomi products with outstanding imaging capabilities to the market. Taking the well-received Xiaomi 10 series as an example, the Xiaomi 10 Pro scored 124 points in the DxOMark test, ranking first in overall imaging.

In the past, Xiaomi's organization has been constantly changing. According to public data, there were as many as 35 adjustments in 2021 alone. However, as Xiaomi's 26th employee, Wang Xuanran has been deeply involved in the camera department since joining in 2018. It is unclear what impact this change will have on Xiaomi's imaging efforts.

It is worth noting that at the Xiaomi 14 Ultra launch event in February of this year, Xiaomi President Lu Weibing announced that the "Xiaomi Imaging Brain 2.0" would be upgraded to "Xiaomi AISP," positioned as the "first AI large-scale model computational photography platform." This platform will fully integrate CPU (Central Processing Unit), GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), NPU (Neural Processing Unit), and ISP computing power.

When the camera department was established in 2018, it originated from a 26-member team focused on camera module research. Although it has undergone multiple expansions in the past and now has 2,000 members, it is unclear how Xiaomi's camera department will adapt to the large-scale model computational photography platform in the AI era in terms of organizational structure.

Regarding organizational adjustments and personnel turnover, Lei Jun once summarized at the end of an internal letter in 2018, "Without veterans, there is no heritage. Without newcomers, there is no future." The camera department was newly established at that time, and perhaps the six-year-old department now also needs to nurture new changes and vitality.