Who says jailbreaking doesn't pay? Apparently it paid off big-time for a software programmer who built a notification app for the iPhone that's better than the one from Apple.

Apple hired Peter Hajas, the developer behind the "MobileNotifier" application for jailbroken iPhones, AppleInsider confirmed June 3. Hajas had stopped work on the app some time last week, saying only that he was taking a break.

"Until then, stay hungry and stay foolish," Hajas wrote on his personal blog peterhajas.com, noting that stopping work doesn't mean he was going to be out of commission.

"I can't say why, but it's worth it. Trust me," he wrote on his personal blog. "If you look around hard enough, you'll probably figure it out." Hajas also posted on Twitter that he'd gone to work for a "fruit" company in California, prompting various Apple-watching blogs to speculate that he'd gone to Apple.

Apple Insider confirmed that he wold be working in Apple's iOS Applications and Frameworks division, at the company's Cupertino, Calif.-based corporate headquarters.

MobileNotifier is described as "iOS notifications. Done Right," on the jail-break only Cydia app store. It has a unified notification bar at the top of the screen that's easier to use than the existing native system. Apple supposedly has a system similar to MobileNotifier in the works for iOS 5.