“Apple Inc. keeps snapping up mapping companies,” Jessica E. Lessin reports. “The latest: Embark Inc., a small Silicon Valley upstart that builds free transit apps to help smartphone users navigate public transportation.”
“We don’t know how much Apple paid for the several-person team it acquired very recently,” Lessin reports. “But we heard from people knowledgeable about the deal that the company plans to directly integrate Embark’s technology into Apple Maps.”
Lessin reports, “Embark, founded in 2011, builds apps for mobile devices powered by Android and Apple’s iOS with information about transit systems in about half a dozen U.S. cities such as New York, San Francisco and Chicago. Its iOS apps are still available for download, but its Android apps aren’t, according to our checks. An Apple spokeswoman confirmed the deal and said ‘Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If only Apple could buy a first impression for their Maps app.
To head up Maps, Apple could resurrect Magellan himself and the great unwashed would still think it sucked.
Heckuva job, Scottie.
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