Apple Has Hired MobileNotifier Developer Peter Hajas

[MacRumors]

The speculation began last week when iPhoneinCanada posted that it believes that mobile developer Peter Hajas has started working for Apple. A developer getting a new job at Apple would not be newsworthy in itself, but Hajas was the developer of a popular jailbreak notification add-on for iOS. iPhoneinCanada describes how earlier versions of the MobileNotifier add-on works:

Now, there's a hot tweak called MobileNotifier (beta 3 release) via Cydia that makes notifications unobtrusive and allows you to keep using existing apps. An elegant bar appears up top of your homescreen and with one tap you can choose to close or open the notification. Alerts will also appear on your lockscreen. When you double tap the Home button, you'll see a list of your recent alerts via the AlertDashboard.

And associated video:

Peter Hajas doesn't come right out and say that he's now working Apple but did post a cryptic update to his blog saying that he will be taking a break from MobileNotifier for a while due to other opportunities.

RedmondPie has since discovered a (now deleted) Tweet posted in early May by Hajas saying that he would be heading off to work in California at a "fruit" company. Meanwhile, we've also independently confirmed that Hajas is now an employee at Apple.

Apple is rumored to be improving iOS's notification system in the next version of iOS to be detailed at WWDC, and a report from mid-February had indicated that Apple was hiring an unnamed outside developer to revamp notifications, although it is unknown if that person was indeed Hajas. Regardless, Apple has certainly already worked heavily on such a system prior to this hire, but it's still interesting nonetheless.

Article Link: Apple Has Hired MobileNotifier Developer Peter Hajas

 

[TheOrioles33]

Excellent! Good for him! Heres to iOS5!!

 

[Cougarcat]

If this guy was only just hired, I hope that doesn't mean notifications are a no-show in iOS 5.

 

[jap1198]

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I can't wait to see what the new notif. system is like.

 

[milamber]

It's good that he has been hired because that means what we already have through MobileNotifier will be the MINIMUM and hopefully the revamped notifications will be even better!

 

[cere]

This is great news. I've used MobileNotifier for a while. It is a little rough around the edges in someways, but the functionality is awesome. I am holding off on getting to excited though. As Cougarcat says, if he was just hired, he probably won't have time to contribute much to iOS5. They hired the guy that architected the notification system in PalmOS (best around so far) almost 2 years ago, I think, and we haven't seen any improvements since then.

 

[neko girl]

Congrats.

Jailbreaking adds usefulness to iOS? Now Apple thinks so too.

 

[chrmjenkins]

If this guy was only just hired, I hope that doesn't mean notifications are a no-show in iOS 5.

There has been news of them gobbling up notification gurus for the past year alongside talks of notifications in iOS5. They got Palm's notification UI designer, they got this guy and there's rumors that they were involved with boxcar too. They are serious about getting notifications made over and I'm willing to bet it's for iOS5.

Palm's notification system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zplVSI0M93o (keep in mind this is two years old)

 

[Pechente]

This is a horrible notification system, I hope Apple won't implement this in iOS 5 but comes up with something new.

Having to tap a notification in order for it to disappear is a subpar solution and not any better than Apple's current notification system. Also read this blog post written by a designer: http://blog.cocoia.com/2011/notify/

 

[ChazUK]

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Looks like Apple have bagged a great developer with some good ideas there.

Congratulations to Peter too.

 

[FriarNurgle]

*Golf clap*

 

[lifeinhd]

A few weeks ago on this site, there was a story about Apple sending out surveys to some of its customers. I was one of these customers. When they asked me for one thing they could do to improve, I suggested instead of fighting jailbreakers, work with them to see why they jailbreak, and implement those things. That should cut down on jailbreaking, obviously a plus for them. Glad to see they took my suggestion!

 

[Reach9]

There has been news of them gobbling up notification gurus for the past year alongside talks of notifications in iOS5. They got Palm's notification UI designer, they got this guy and there's rumors that they were involved with boxcar too. They are serious about getting notifications made over and I'm willing to bet it's for iOS5.

I agree.

I do think that Apple has already worked on a notification system (please god), and Peter Hajas will help "update" it, and nothing else.
Are you telling me Apple couldn't set up a notification system on their own and had to get this developer to do it? What about the designer from WebOS?
The deal-breaker for iOS 5 is a notification system.

 

[Bilbo63]

This is great news. I've used MobileNotifier for a while. It is a little rough around the edges in someways, but the functionality is awesome. I am holding off on getting to excited though. As Cougarcat says, if he was just hired, he probably won't have time to contribute much to iOS5. They hired the guy that architected the notification system in PalmOS (best around so far) almost 2 years ago, I think, and we haven't seen any improvements since then.

Just thinking out loud here... If he has already developed this system and it's been working on jail broken devices, would it really be that hard to tweak it a bit if required and get it working on iOS5?

Wouldn't most of the hard work be done already?

I'm willing to bet that we'll see at least some of his efforts in iOS5.

Then again, I could be wrong.

 

[Apple...]

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Interesting concept, but it definitely needs work. Here's to hoping iOS 5 is the best update yet!

 

[Sky Blue]

It looks better than what is in iOS right now, but it still seems quite intrusive.

 

[alexhasfun28]

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that's horrible! I've seen way better notifications. Like the one you can see all your notifications when awake your phone (before you unlock it) and you're able to swipe across a notification and it'll take you directly to it!

 

[CrAkD]

hopefully they already have notifications taken care of and hes just coming in to help maintain cause mobile notifier kind of sucked.

 

[Kentochan]

Jailbreaking for the win! iOS 5 sounds like a winner in terms of notifications.

 

[Full of Win]

Perhaps Apple will use a little paperclip to give messages. Can't see how anything could be as bad as the modal, focus stealing notification system used now.

 

[hitekalex]

So maybe this will make Apple appreciate the value that the Jailbreaking community and "unsanctioned" developers like Mr.Hajas bring to the table?

Perhaps they will even becomea bit less gung-ho about in closing off JB opportunities and make the future iOS devices a bit more "open" to experimental developers? Ah, who am I kidding!

 

[Žalgiris]

So basically iOS needs Growl implemented?

 

[Andy-V]

That's hardly better than what we have. A notification should pause a game if it pops up for reasons I really don't need to state.

They should follow android on this one and have notifications as a pull down menu from the status bar. So when you're playing a game or something there's actually no interruption at all, literally just a little icon to say "hey, there's something to read over here" and then you can choose to view it rather than have it forced onto the screen.

 

[Apple...]

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that's horrible! I've seen way better notifications. Like the one you can see all your notifications when awake your phone (before you unlock it) and you're able to swipe across a notification and it'll take you directly to it!

Oh yeah! I forgot about that one. That one's super cool, mainly because it makes good use of the lock screen.

 

[Superdrive]

Now it takes TWO taps to dismiss the notification instead of one. Hopefully once Apple gets their hands on it, they can do an auto-dismiss after three seconds or so. This is a literal case of one step forward and two steps backward.