The Facebook phone rumor has reared its head again as Apple’s ex UI Design Manager Chris Weeldreyer has now joined Facebook.
Weeldreyer joined Apple in November of 2003 and has been with them for the last 8 years. More importantly he has a number of patents to his name with Apple which includes iWeb for iPad, multi-touch and gesture related inventions.
As per his Facebook page indicates, Weeldreyer has join them on the 18th of June as a Product Design Manager. Though, the listed designation does not give a clear indication as to what his exact role will be in the firm.
A lot of news agencies are linking the move to the old Facebook smartphone rumor, with the New York Times claiming that Facebook has already hired more than a dozen former software and hardware engineers with Apple.
The Facebook smartphone rumor is now more than a year old. And though Facebook has never released their own phones, HTC with Chacha & Salsa, and Vodafone with Blue have released Facebook phones in the past.
With Facebook going public recently, they have been on a hiring spree and as such a Facebook phone cannot be ruled out completely.
