Apple hiring for ‘secret’ Maps project, possibly involving web-based version of app

By Trevor Mogg September 30, 2013

apple hiring for secret maps project — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Apple has something Maps-based up its sleeve, with a recent job ad revealing the tech giant is looking for a web UI designer for “a new secret project” involving its mapping service.

“We’re working on an exciting new system and need your help,” the ad says. “You would be joining a small team working on an advanced web platform upon which many of Apple’s future services will be based.”

The company is looking for a front-end engineer with a “strong background in web services development, and who has built high-performance, scalable and extensible systems,” with the successful candidate defining and implementing “some of the web pages for the system that will power next-generation Apple products.”

With experience of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, DOM, XML, and JSON a requirement, Apple news site MacRumors, which spotted the ad over the weekend, suggests the company could be gearing up to launch a web-based Maps service along the lines of Google’s offering.

“It is possible that Apple is working on building up a more prominent web presence, developing a series of web-based apps that would extend the Apple experience outside of Apple products,” MacRumors says, explaining that such a Maps-based offering could be incorporated into iCloud or other Apple products.

Of course, there will be those who believe the company should concentrate on fixing its much-criticized Maps app before it starts thinking about taking the whole shebang onto the web.

Although Apple has done much to improve the iOS app since its disastrous launch exactly a year ago – including the hiring of so-called ‘ground truth managers‘ and the acquisition of a number of navigation-based startups – there appeared to be a slight hiccup last week when it emerged that the app was mistakenly directing drivers looking for Alaska’s Fairbanks International Airport onto one of the airport’s taxiways. Several drivers even scooted across the main runway to get to the terminal building.

Topics

Apple

Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

Computing

How Intel and Microsoft are teaming up to take on Apple

An Intel Meteor Lake system-on-a-chip.

It seems like Apple might need to watch out, because Intel and Microsoft are coming for it after the latter two companies reportedly forged a close partnership during the development of Intel Lunar Lake chips. Lunar Lake refers to Intel's upcoming generation of mobile processors that are aimed specifically at the thin and light segment. While the specs are said to be fairly modest, some signs hint that Lunar Lake may have enough of an advantage to pose a threat to some of the best processors.

Today's round of Intel Lunar Lake leaks comes from Igor's Lab. The system-on-a-chip (SoC), pictured above, is Intel's low-power solution made for thin laptops that's said to be coming out later this year. Curiously, the chips weren't manufactured on Intel's own process, but on TSMC's N3B node. This is an interesting development because Intel typically sticks to its own fabs, and it even plans to sell its manufacturing services to rivals like AMD. This time, however, Intel opted for the N3B node for its compute tile.

Computing

How much does an AI supercomputer cost? Try $100 billion

A Microsoft datacenter.

It looks like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Sora, among other projects, are about to get a lot more juice. According to a new report shared by The Information, Microsoft and OpenAI are working on a new data center project, one part of which will be a massive AI supercomputer dubbed "Stargate." Microsoft is said to be footing the bill, and the cost is astronomical as the name of the supercomputer suggests -- the whole project might cost over $100 billion.

Spending over $100 billion on anything is mind-blowing, but when put into perspective, the price truly shows just how big a venture this might be: The Information claims that the new Microsoft and OpenAI joint project might cost a whopping 100 times more than some of the largest data centers currently in operation.

Computing

There’s an unexpected, new competitor in PC gaming

Snapdragon's X Elite PC SoC.

Windows gaming on ARM is becoming a legitimate possibility, and it's not just thanks to the recently unveiled emulation options, but it's chiefly due to the fact that Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite is shaping up to be pretty excellent. Spotted in a recent benchmark, the CPU was seen beating some of the best processors on the current market. Are we finally at a point where it's not always going to be a choice between just Intel and AMD?

The benchmarks were posted by user @techinmul on Twitter, and the results couldn't be more promising for the upcoming Qualcomm processor. The chip was tested in Geekbench 6, and although it's important not to take these results entirely at face value, it's an impressive show of performance that bodes well for upcoming thin and light laptops.