Facebook's Poaching of Apple Employees Continues With Apple's Former UI Design Manager

[Phillip Swanson]

Moving from company to company seems like old hat in Silicon Valley, which makes one wonder what happens when employees go from Apple to Facebook, and Facebook to Apple. Do their secrets die in Cupertino? Do they share the inner workings of their previous companies with their new overlords? Does Apple have some sort of memory wipe device? Or life-ending clause in certain contracts?

Whatever the case, Facebook snagged another former Apple employee Chris Weeldreyer as their new product design manager. Weeldreyer worked as Apple’s UI Design Manager for over eight years. Which begs the question, will there be a change in UI philosophy in the future at Apple?

Previous reports have pegged the number of Apple employees poached by Facebook at more than half a dozen, with most of them previously working on the iPhone. This “coincidence” of course has sparked rumors and speculation that Facebook is developing its own phone to drop on the masses.

How Weeldryer’s absence will influence Apple’s future design plans is uncertain, but he is listed on a number of Apple patents including those filed for multi-touch, security patents, and other gesture-related inventions. His self-proclaimed areas of expertise are industrial design, interaction design, and user interface design.

Source: 9to5Mac

[blueaviator]

Maybe after this change, we will actually see some changes in the iPhone's UI??? 'cause it's starting to get "old"...

[inappropriate response]

Maybe after this change, we will actually see some changes in the iPhone's UI??? 'cause it's starting to get "old"...

i doubt it, apple's selling point is that it's easy to use. Changing it from a grid of icons would confuse 80% of the people who use it.