Mikey Campbell
Hot on the heels of revealing plans for an iOS app design and development facility in Bengaluru, Apple on Thursday local time announced the opening of an office in Hyderabad tasked with accelerating development of Maps products for iOS, Mac and Apple Watch.
The new development center will create up to 4,000 jobs, with employees set to work on Maps updates and new features to be applied to iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch, the company said.
"Apple is focused on making the best products and services in the world and we are thrilled to open this new office in Hyderabad which will focus on Maps development," said Apple CEO Tim Cook. "The talent here in the local area is incredible and we are looking forward to expanding our relationships and introducing more universities and partners to our platforms as we scale our operations."
As detailed in a February report, Apple is taking up residence on the Waverock campus positioned in Hyderabad's tech corridor. At the time, reports claimed Apple was spending $25 million on the project, though the figure has not been confirmed.
As part of the announcement, Apple revealed that it supports more than 640,000 iOS app developer jobs and related positions in India.
On Tuesday, plans for an upcoming iOS design and development accelerator in Bengaluru were announced. When the facility opens in 2017, local developers will be able to hone their coding skills with the help of industry experts.
The pair of announcements come as Cook tours India, the second leg in a trip to Asia that began with a stop off in China. He is rumored to meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi later this week.
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21 Comments
All these announcements are shallower by the day.
Uh, I hope that the Apple Maps team has some significant news now because they have more people. I always think of the Apple Maps team as two engineers locked in a room with one drone and 1 van.
My repeated requests to fix Apple Maps or to include suggestions has fallen on deaf ears. Outside of the US, Apple Maps is essentially useless when juxtaposed to Google Maps.
Once multi billion dollar Nokia used to pay 350 million per year to FoxConn.
Nokia failed to respond/react or take proactive steps to Apple advances ... Today Foxconn bought Nokia(part of) for 350 million.
Apple has to respond/react to advances by Android scale, capacity, availability.
I think Tim is on right track to speed up Maps and other projects which is critical in times where everything is data/location aware.
Business run on cash flow/burn, skill availability etc. Tim can't ignore available the talent, productivity of engineers in India at the same time reducing cost drastically to stay relevant in the fast changing world.
Apple not buying HERE maps when they could have, was not very bright, particularly in light of the relevance it would have had to Apple Maps, the Apple Car and now their investment in Didi.