The purchase of the company called WifiSLAM is reported to have been made for $20 million.
According to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, Apple has just closed an acquisition agreement with a company called WifiSLAM, a business focused on a unique form of geolocation.
The purchase was of a company that concentrates primarily on building this technology.
What makes the geolocation technology from WifiSLAM as unique as it is, is that it makes it possible to obtain user positioning data while an individual is indoors – a considerable hurdle in geolocaiton until now. It is estimated that Apple paid approximately $20 million for the acquisition of the company based in Silicon Valley.
The geolocation technology company is a two year old startup that focuses on mobile apps.
These applications are able to detect the location of a user while inside a building through the use of Wi-Fi signaling technology. This geolocation technology has been offered to various app developers for use for indoor mapping and a number of different social networking and retail app purposes. It currently employs a handful of people. Joseph Huang, one of the company’s co-founders, is a former software engineering intern from Google.
This acquisition is not coming as a surprise to many in the industry. This is particularly true for those who have been keeping a close eye on geolocation developments in the war between Apple and Google in the environment of online and mobile mapping. Following the disaster that has been connected to iOS Maps through bad reviews, long lists of user complaints, and even statements against the service by the Australian government after unsuspecting users were sent into the outback, Apple is looking to make some important new moves.
Apple chief executive officer, Tim Cook, made a public apology last year, in which he admitted that the company needs to produce a product with higher quality. The acquisition of unique and forward thinking geolocation technology such as that which is offered by WifiSLAM appears to be precisely the type of direction that the company is seeking to take for the next release of this product.
