Living the dream of many an (unauthorized) app developer, Peter Hajas has been hired by Apple after developing replacement notification software for jailbroken iOS devices, MobileCrunch reports.

Hajas’ MobileNotifier app replaces the annoying pop-up notifications for jailbroken iPhones with unintrusive alerts. It’s the sort of feature that drives many users to jailbreak their iOS devices — now it seems even Apple is taking notice of interesting contributions from jailbreak app developers.

Apple is expected to announce a revamped notification system for iOS 5 at its Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, and we can assume Hajas is working on that project. Among his employers on Facebook, Hajas lists Apple and notes he’s been an intern there since May. MobileCrunch notes that Apple generally brings on new developers as interns to test them out.

Last year Apple poached WebOS developer Rich Dellinger, who spearheaded that platform’s gorgeous notification system. There’s been no word on his work since he joined the company, but I suspect we’ll see a similarly pretty and unintrusive notification system come to iOS 5. It’s worth noting that Android has also had an easy-to-use notification system for some time — Apple clearly has some catching up to do.

AI Weekly

The must-read newsletter for AI and Big Data industry written by Khari Johnson, Kyle Wiggers, and Seth Colaner.

Included with VentureBeat Insider and VentureBeat VIP memberships.

Check out a demonstration of the latest version of MobileNotifier below.

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive mobile trends at our fourth annual MobileBeat 2011 conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the rise of 4G and how it delivers the promise of true mobile computing. We’re also accepting entries for our mobile startup competition at the show. MobileBeat is co-located with our GamesBeat 2011 conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com.

VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Learn More