Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) hired Wifarer cofounder Philip Stanger last February. He left the company to a new chief executive officer. Stanger is an interesting hire for Apple considering this background. He attended prestigious schools Johns Hopkins and Yale before he got jobs with Paramount Pictures and BBC.
How Stanger could benefit Apple
It is predicted Stanger will help Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) with user-facing components of an indoor location strategy for Apple Maps. Last year, the iPhone maker purchase WiSlam, a company with indoor GPS technology. However, this particular acquisition only brought better engineering and core technologies. Apple Insider summed it up, “The indoor positioning startup is two years old and has already raised funding from angel investors, though the exact amount is unknown. WifiSLAM has a number of ties to Google, including the company’s co-founder Joseph Huang, who was a software engineering intern at the search giant. Current Google employee Don Dodge is also listed as an angel investor. Apple could implement the positioning assets into its much maligned iOS Maps app as an answer to Google’s Indoor Maps initiative, which leverages crowdsourcing to deliver indoor location information for a number of sites worldwide. ”
The struggle with maps
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s mapping application has been one big area of struggle for the company. The tech giant’s biggest rival Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) already set the standard for mobile map applications. Apple is a successful tech company that excels in many areas, unfortunately, this particular product has been harder to the company to ace. Now that brought Apple brought Philip Stanger on board, it is evident the iOS maker is ready to take maps to the next level.
There is speculation one of the big highlights for the upcoming iOS 8 will be maps. With iOS 7, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) primarily kept the focus on appearance with a more modern makeover. Fans can expect iOS 8 to debut later this summer.
