According to AllThingsD Apple buys even further into mobile mapping services with Locationary, a small Toronto-based developer of crowdsourced location data management.
Reportedly the acquisition covers both Locationary technology and staff. As per Apple usual there is no actual confirmation of the purchase, just the statement “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”
Locationary manages a vast local business database. It uses crowdsourcing and its own Saturn data exchange platform to collect, merge and verify information.
Interestingly Locationary CEO Grant Ritchie wrote a TechCrunch article detailing the 5 challenges Apple faces in creating a mapping service just 10 months before he ended up making part of Apple.
Locationary is the second recent Apple navigation-related acquisition-- on March 2013 the iPhone maker bought WifiSLAM, a mapping service using wifi signals to detect smartphone user location inside buildings.
The reason for such purchases is obvious. Apple Maps launched on September 2012 to much criticism and a rare apology from CEO Tim Cook, while Google already offers indoor mapping in 10000 locations (covering airports, retail centres and sport venues) across 13 countries.
Go Apple Acquires Local Data Outfit Locationary (AllThingsD)
