While Apple Maps has improved tremendously since its inception, it’s safe to say that many still turn to Google Maps or even Bing Maps as an alternative to what Apple is offering. Perhaps they were jaded by their previous experience, or maybe Google’s services are just too ingrained in them to give up.
However Apple does not appear to be giving up. According to a report from Re/code, it seems that the Cupertino company has recently acquired a mapping visualization startup by the name of Mapsense. For those unfamiliar with Mapsense and what they do, basically they build tools to help analyze and visualize location data.
The report claims that Apple might have paid anywhere between $25-$30 million to acquire the company. Unsurprisingly Apple neither acknowledged nor denied the acquisition, instead choosing to release a boilerplate statement that reads, “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”
This isn’t the first location-based service that Apple has acquired. Re/code points at other acquisitions over the years such as HopStop and Coherent Navigation as some of their previous acquisitions. There’s no word on what Apple plans to use MapSense for, but perhaps we will see its technology integrated into iOS in future builds.
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