Apple has hired Sinisa Durekovic, a satellite navigation engineer that has worked for some of the most well-respected luxury automakers in the world, including BMW and Mercedes. Durekovic joined Apple in an unspecified role in October last year. He was principal architect and then chief engineer for navigation at Harman International Industries Inc., whose systems are used by a slew of carmakers.
Durekovic had earlier worked in the Munich suburb of Garching, close to BMW’s headquarters in the city. Then he relocated to the San Francisco area when he joined Apple last year. The engineer started out in 1994 at Navigon GmbH, a global positioning system company now owned by Garmin Ltd. He has spent more than 20 years working in various roles developing satellite navigation software and holds a patent on a system that uses mapping data to prevent car collisions.
While it's unclear what Durekovic may be working on at Apple, it's likely that it has something to do with Maps or CarPlay given his background.
In December, Apple said Apple Maps is now used three times more than Google Maps on the iPhone, and there are several projects in the works to further improve Maps. Apple's CEO Tim Cook opened a 4,000-employee development center in Hyderabad, India, last month that will focus on mapping and Apple recently invested a cool $1 billion in Chinese ride-sharing company Didi Chuxing which could give it access to mapping and vehicle data in the huge 1.33 billion people market.
Whatever be the reason behind hiring one thing is certain that hiring a satellite navigation expert should definitely help the iPhone maker improve its Maps service, which could see some major improvements at WWDC later this month.
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