Senior Apple Maps engineer drives off to Uber

July 9, 2014

Uber, the car service that's irritating taxi companies everywhere, has poached a senior Apple engineer who was a lead on Apple Maps. Chris Blumenberg had been with Apple since 2000, starting as a developer liaison with Microsoft in building Internet Explorer and Office for Mac OS X. More recently, however, he led the 40-person team that built the Apple Maps client software for both iOS and OS X.

What exactly Blumenberg is going to do at Uber isn't clear, but The Information posits that his expertise may come in handy with Uber's "sophisticated routing system [that] relies on correctly pinpointing users' locations."

The Apple Maps unit has seen turnover since its painful launch with iOS 6 back in 2012. The service has improved considerably since then, though it still has some kinks to work out.

Apple's software and design talent bench is deep, but they've struggled with services like Maps. How do you want to see Apple Maps improved?

Source: The Information