Apple has made another notable hire from the mapping world this month: the Cupertino-based company, coming off of a series of mishaps in its Maps division, has brought on former Nokia HERE and NAVTEQ executive Torsten Krenz, according to sources. Before joining Apple this month, Krenz served as Nokia HERE’s director of regional map and content.
Krenz has had a long career in the mapping world and previously served as Vice President of Global Expansion in NAVTEQ’s Digital Mapping Operations before it was acquired by Nokia and merged with Here. Sources say Krenz was leading global field operations and responsible for ground truth mapping worldwide at Here before departing for Apple. It’s an interesting hire as Apple also hints at a new data-collection project for Maps and could be another clue the company is looking to step up its own data-collection to improve Maps.
The hire comes just as Apple yesterday hinted at a data-collection project for the Maps team based in New York. Last summer Apple went on a hiring spree for Ground Truth contributors around the globe that would contribute regional fixes and improve Maps locally, much like Google and other mapping companies rely on. Sources say that program was put on hold at the direction of Edwards, but with Edwards out, the hire of Krenz, and hints at new data-collection projects, it sounds a lot like Apple might be going back to its original plan of collecting its own data.
