Apple is trying to buy its way out of the map fiasco by hiring Google experts. Jobs' Mob made a big thing of cancelling its map software on iOS 6 and forcing users to use its own “superior” system.

The only problem was that it was complete rubbish and could not even direct a fanboy to one of its own stores. In short, it should never have been released, let alone be made a marketing reason to buy the new iPhone5.

Now it seems that Apple has realised that it is not going to get away with running the shonky product for long and is desperate to make it go. Unfortunately the only place that such expertise exists is with its rival Google, which it famously fired.

Using recruiters, Apple is pursuing a strategy of luring away Google Maps employees who helped develop the search giant’s product on contract. It might just get away with it because most of them might want to accept due in part to the opportunity Apple represents to build new product, instead of just doing “tedious updates” on a largely complete platform. According to Techcrunch, when attention at Google turned to indoor mapping, things started to become less interesting and a lot of staff began looking around for other opportunities.

Google probably is not losing much sleep over it. The recent Apple Maps fiasco has shown that Apple is light years behind Google when it comes to mapping. It is only taking contractors, and Google has to get rid of them every year anyway.