Graphic designer nabs Apple internship after showing off work on YouTube

An interesting trend has been emerging over the past year – Apple is beginning to hire people (or at least take them on as interns) based upon free-lance work they’ve done either in the jailbreak community or as conceptual designers.

Peter Hajas, the guy behind the jailbreak application MobileNotifier, accepted a job at Apple and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Apple’s Notifications Center looked a hell of a lot like MobileNotifier. And Hajas isn’t alone. Over the past year, a few prominent jailbreak developers have announced official positions with the Cupertino-based company. The latest “intern” discovered through unconventional means is a student named  Jan-Michael Cart.

Cart has won praise for his iOS concepts after posting demos to YouTube and it seems they’ve caught Apple’s eye, and for good reason. Cart’s designs are crazy good. If someone showed me his Notifications Center modifications and told me it was official Apple stuff, I’d believe it in a heartbeat. Honestly, my only surprise is that this guy wasn’t hired sooner.

It’s great to see Apple trying to incorporate more of what real-world users want into its products. And, for our sake as much as Cart’s, I hope some of his concepts make it into future iOS builds.

Check out the video below and let me know what you think in the comments section below or hit me up on twitter.

Via: AppAdvice