Facebook Reportedly Hires Former Apple Manager Richard Williamson

By: Zain Nabi  |   April 17th, 2013   |   Apple, News, Smartphones, Social Media

As it attempts to further expand its area of reach by planning to send direct messages to consumers’ smartphones, Facebook has reportedly hired former Apple manager Richard Williamson, who led Apple’s mapping effort but was let go when it received severe criticism because the maps had bugs and incorrect directions.

 

The report has not been confirmed by Facebook, but Bloomberg has quoted sources claiming the information is correct. According to Adam Satariano of Bloomberg: “Williamson joined Facebook in the past couple of weeks to be a manager within its expanding mobile-software group.”

 

Williamson served Apple for more than a decade and enjoyed pretty decent time at the company under Steve Jobs. He developed software of the iPhone and was later asked to manage the project aimed at replacing Google’s mapping service for the iPhone and iPad. However, things went terribly wrong for Apple and Williamson when the mapping service developed bugs and reports of incorrect directions in the maps started surfacing. Subsequently, Williamson was let go and Apple’s current CEO Tim Cook even apologised to the customers for the error.

 

That noted, there are no doubts on the abilities Williamson possesses and that is why Facebook has trusted him with its big venture. Facebook has already hired a number of professionals for its new project and some of them have even worked at Apple. Now it will be interesting to see how these people together give their services in realising Facebook’s dream of being much more than a social network.

 

Facebook recently launched software, Home, for Android users in an attempt to take over small screens. Now it is reportedly in talks with Apple and Microsoft with respect to make the Home software operational on other operating systems as well.

 

Many of the developments regarding Facebook’s recent project have not been made public yet and many rumours are running wild in the market. Moreover, the company has neither supported nor rejected any of the recent developments, which has given room for speculations to grow.

 

Photo: NEUROPE