AppleInsider Staff
Last week, word went out that Peter Hajas had stopped work on his "MobileNotifier" application for jailbroken iPhones. That, along with Twitter posts saying he had gone to work for a "fruit" company in California, led to speculation, from sites like iPhoneinCanada.ca and RedmondPie that Hajas was hired by Apple.
AppleInsider was able to independently confirm on Friday that Hajas has indeed landed a job with the iPhone maker. He is said to be working in Apple's iOS Applications & Frameworks division, at the company's corporate headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.
MobileNotifier is an application that was described in the jailbreak-only Cydia application store as "iOS notifications. Done Right." The application had nearly a quarter-million downloads from jailbreak users, and had been upgraded numerous times to reach beta 4.
On his own blog, Hajas said he would be taking a break from the software, but added that his departure was "definitely not goodbye."
"I can't say why, but it's worth it. Trust me," he wrote. "If you look around hard enough, you'll probably figure it out."
Apple's notification system in iOS is often widely criticized as one of the weakest aspect of the mobile operating system. The company is set to show off the next version of its software, iOS 5, at next week's Worldwide Developers Conference.
Though it's possible iOS 5 could include a new notification system for iPhones and iPads — and has even been rumored as a new feature — it's unlikely that the recently hired Hajas played a role in the development of any features that might be shown off on Monday.
Hajas is another notifications-centric developer who has made headlines after being hired by Apple. Last June, Apple also hired Rich Dellinger, previously the User Interface Design Architect for Palm, where he designed the notification system for Palm's webOS mobile operating system.
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49 Comments
If You Can't Beat Them, Hire Them.
They should also hire the team (person) that made LockInfo. On it's own or combined with MobileNotifier, it is a great add-on for iOS. Anyhoo, good to hear they hired Peter. For all the things I love about iPhones and iOS, APN is what I hate most.
This is good news, that system is great. I seem to recall a story last year about Apple hiring back a former employer that went to Palm and created the WebOS notification system too.
I hope these changes make it into iOS 5. I imagine they will come up with something pretty slick.
MobileNotifier is an application that was described in the jailbreak-only Cydia application store as "iOS notifications. Done Right." The application had nearly a quarter-million downloads from jailbreak users, and had been upgraded numerous times to reach beta 4.
...
"I can't say why, but it's worth it. Trust me," he wrote. "If you look around hard enough, you'll probably figure it out."
Can anyone who's used this app describe it in more detail than is in this (deliberately?) vague article?
Though it's possible iOS 5 could include a new notification system for iPhones and iPads -- and has even been rumored as a new feature -- it's unlikely that the recently hired Hajas played a role in the development of any features that might be shown off on Monday.
Don't forget that his work is open source and Apple's developers have had access to it for some time. His coming on board may be for the next release and for Apple to avoid a PR issue. Too, he has proven himself as an able developer. And, has been able to build a good team around him.
Considering Apple''s developers access to iOS 5 and private frameworks it will be interesting to see how much more advanced and better integrated the new notification system will be.