Fruits of the Apple tree: 20 tech marvels that came from former Apple bods

11. Moov

Moov is the so-called "Siri for sweat" motion tracker. It claims to be the world's most advanced fitness tracker, and you'll never guess where its creator, former Halo developer and Microsoft researcher Nikola Hu, used to work. Here's a clue. It rhymes with "grapple".

12. Nest

Tony Fadell

Tony Fadell - the father of the iPod

Nest's creator, Tony Fadell, is famed as "the father of the iPod". He's not the only ex-Apple brain that joined the Googleplex when Google bought out Nest this year. The firm employs an estimated 100-plus former Apple engineers, product designers and executives.

13. Paper

At Apple, Mike Matas worked on the user interface for the iPhone and iPad. As design lead for the iOS app Paper he's responsible for one of the most beautiful iOS apps around.

14. Path

Path co-founder Dave Morin worked at Apple for just over two years, leaving the firm to join Facebook in 2006. He left Facebook in 2010 to co-found Path, a social networking site. "We wanted to build the Apple of the internet," he said in a 2013 interview.

15. Posterous

The blogging service Posterous comes from the brain of Sachin Agarwal, who worked on Final Cut Pro for six years and left Apple just before the controversial Final Cut Pro X. The self-described "Apple fanboy" quit his dream job because he felt a "burning need" to make online sharing better.

16. Square Card Reader

Square card reader

The Square Card reader has been revolutionary for small businesses

Square's payment system wasn't invented by a former Apple staffer, but the latest version of its card reader comes from a team headed by former Apple engineer Jesse Dorogusker. Dorogusker worked on projects including the Lightning connector and the intriguing iPod-compatible "smart bike" during his eight years with the firm.

17. Stir

The Stir is no ordinary desk: it moves from sitting to standing, learns your work patterns and urges you to get up and move. Creator JP Labrosse was one of the first 35 employees of Apple's iPod division and led the engineering teams for two iPod programmes.

18. Storehouse

Mark Kawano's app makes it easy to organise photos, videos and words, and it's a very good looking thing. You'd expect nothing less from the man who designed iPhoto and worked with developers to make attractive iOS apps.

19. Twitter

Twitter

Loren Brichter made the Twitter app

Not the service, but the app. The app (which was bought by Twitter) was created by former Apple Graphic Engineer Loren Brichter. Brichter now makes Twitter's official desktop and mobile apps.

20. Upthere

UpThere is a "mystery startup" from Bertrand Serlet, former Senior Vice President of Software and Engineering at Apple and the man largely responsible for OS X Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard. He left Apple in 2011 "to focus less on products and more on science" and founded UpThere in 2012, which promises to be the future of the cloud. And that's pretty much all we know, as UpThere is still in stealth mode.

Check the iPad Air, a tech marvel mad by current Apple staffers

Carrie Marshall
Contributor

Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall (Twitter) has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock band HAVR.