For many of the largest Silicon Valley technology companies, location software undergirds numerous applications and features in their products.
For Apple Inc, it has been a game of catch-up.
To that end, Apple on Sunday confirmed that it had purchased Coherent Navigation Inc, a Bay Area global positioning company, further bolstering Apple’s location technology and services.
“Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” the company said in an e-mail.
Founded in 2008, Coherent Navigation was a small firm that focused on creating commercial navigation services based on partnerships with companies like the Boeing Co and Iridium Communications Inc, the satellite network operator, according to a description on the LinkedIn page of former chief executive Paul Lego.
Since its start, the importance of its technology has only grown.
Coherent Navigation worked on high-precision navigation systems, technology that is far stronger than many consumer-grade global positioning systems, which are typically accurate to within 3m to 5m. In the past, Coherent Navigation has also worked on autonomous navigation and robotics projects, according to previous company job listings, as well as projects for the US Department of Defense.
It is unclear exactly how Apple plans to use the company’s services or technology, or if the company will incorporate its prior work into Apple’s current products.
Terms of Apple’s acquisition of Coherent Navigation were not disclosed.
The acquisition, which was first reported by the technology Web site MacRumors, is another in a string of location technology service acquisitions made by Apple over the past six years. The purchase of Placebase, a small mapping service, in 2009 represented Apple’s transition to building its own mapping technology. Over the following years, Apple bought a string of companies in much the same vein, including Locationary and Hopstop.
Many of these acquisitions were part of a broader strategy to move away from reliance on Google Maps, Google Inc’s widely used navigation service. In 2012, Apple released its own mapping service using in-house technology as well as some licensed from TomTom NV, a Dutch digital mapping company. That replaced Apple’s old mapping application, which was based on Google Maps.
Competition for location-based services has been intensifying, as some of Silicon Valley’s largest tech companies vie for more control over such technologies.
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