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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