Chris Blumenberg, engineer at Apple working on Maps for iOS and OS X, leaving for Uber

A 14-year veteran of Apple, it has been reported that Chris Blumenberg is leaving the company to head to different pastures. While information is limited on the departure, there is no doubt that a key engineer is leaving.

The shift was originally reported by The Information, and outlines Blumenberg’s history at Apple. Over the course of 14 years, he’s worked on quite a bit for Apple. He started with Safari for OS X, but eventually transitioned to Safari for iOS. If the name sounds familiar, you may recall that Blumenberg built one version of Maps for iOS near the tail-end of 2006, so that Steve Jobs could show it off at the iPhone’s introduction back in 2007.

Over the last six years, Blumenberg has been a key engineer and manager for the development of Maps for iOS, as well as Maps for OS X. He has led a team of 40 other engineers during his tenure, and there’s a good chance that his team was in charge of implementing Maps into iCloud.com.
There’s no word on what made Blumenberg decide on the departure from Apple. There’s no word, either, just how long he’ll remain at Apple before he makes the full transition to Uber.
This is undoubtedly a big loss, and Blumenberg’s departure is one of many. At the beginning of June, a report started circulating that suggested many of the improvements to Maps that were scheduled to be showcased at this year’s 2014 were canceled due to unrest within the Maps team as a whole.
[via The Information]

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