Apple is making all the efforts it can to improve its mapping service as it
receives heavy competition from Google Maps, who attracts a wide range of
audience that flock to their service. The company has reportedly purchased
Coherent Navigation, a Bay Area global positioning company, which will further
boost Apple’s location technology and services.
Apple confirmed the news to New York Times via
an email stating, “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time,
and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans”. Terms of Apple’s
acquisition of Coherent Navigation were not disclosed either. Coherent
Navigation is known for its High
Integrity GPS system, which combined signals from mid-earth
orbit GPS satellites with low-earth satellites to offer improved precision and
accuracy.
The acquisition, was first reported by MacRumours who
said that, a number of Coherent’s key employees have recently began
working for Apple, including CEO Paul Lego in January and co-founders William
Bencze and Brett Ledvina in April. It also added that they have updated
their LinkedIn profiles to show that they have taken a role at
Apple. CEO Paul Lego said that he is now a member of the Apple Maps
team while the other two stated that that they have adopted location
engineering positions at the company. Coherent Navigation’s webpage is
currently offline but as of April 30, the company’s domain were also
updated to point to Apple’s servers.
At the moment, there is no information provided as to how the team
at Coherent Navigation will be working at Apple, or whether what specific
technology is Apple looking for in its acquisition. In the past, Apple has
acquired mapping firms such as Locationary, WifiSLAM, Hopstop, Embark, and
Broadmap as well. As WWDC will take place next month, Apple could offer us a
revamped mapping service with some new features.
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