Facebook Said to Hire Ex-Apple Maps Director Williamson for Mobile Efforts

According to a report by Bloomberg, Facebook has reportedly hired a former manager from Apple’s maps team, to help expand the social network’s mobile-software group:

Facebook Inc. has nabbed another member of Apple Inc.’s original iPhone team, hiring Richard Williamson, the manager who had led Apple’s mapping efforts, according to people with knowledge of the hire.

Williamson joined Facebook in the past couple of weeks to be a manager within its expanding mobile-software group, said two of the people, who declined to be identified because the information isn’t public.

You may recall Bloomberg reported the firing of Williamson, a former senior iOS director last November over the troubled release of Apple Maps, let go by senior VP Eddy Cue. Interestingly enough, Williamson’s LinkedIn profile still reflects he is a Senior Director at Apple.

The report notes many former members of Apple’s iPhone software group have made their way to Facebook, as numerous alumni helped play a major role in the recent release of Facebook Home.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has recently brought in the following ex-Apple employees:

• Greg Novick, a former iPhone manager who helped create multi-touch
• Mike Matas and Kimon Tsinteris, software designers from the acqui-hire of Push Pop Press
• Software engineers Scott Goodson, Tim Omernick and Chris Tremblay.

Earlier this morning Mike Matas tweeted he was happy to add famed ex-Apple software designer Loren Brichter to his team, brought on as a consultant according to people familiar with the matter.

Really excited to have @lorenb helping my team out at Facebook.

— Mike Matas (@mike_matas) 16. April 2013

Just today Facebook released its 6.0 update for iOS, introducing its new chat heads feature and a redesigned News Feed; other reports cited a ‘lite’ version of Facebook Home could makes its way to iOS.