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Apple Buys Yet Another Navigation Company

It appears that Apple has made yet another acquisition in the location services area, snapping up a small GPS startup called Coherent Navigation. The purchase, first reported early Sunday, has been co...
Apple Buys Yet Another Navigation Company
Written by Josh Wolford
  • It appears that Apple has made yet another acquisition in the location services area, snapping up a small GPS startup called Coherent Navigation. The purchase, first reported early Sunday, has been confirmed by Apple.

    “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” the company said in an email to the New York Times.

    Coherent has worked on some pretty high-profile project. Here’s what the company said about itself (BGR grabbed this description before the site went down):

    Coherent Navigation develops services and solutions with our team of world-class engineers, harnessing our combined experience from precision navigation, differential GPS, hardware and software radio design, radio navigation, ionospheric physics, target tracking and sensor fusion, autonomous navigation and robotics, satellite mission operations and hardware development, and real-time embedded software development. We multiply our strength through long-lasting partnerships with industry leaders such as Boeing and Iridium, strong friendships with academic leaders at top-tier universities, and multi-branch relationships with many U.S. Department of Defense agencies and Fortune 500 companies.

    A handful of Coherent’s employees had already begun working for Apple, and it’s unclear how much this acquisition is about talent and how much is about tech. Coherent’s CEO Paul Lego now says that he has worked on the Apple Maps team since January.

    This buy is another in a long string of similar purchases for Apple. The list of location services companies Apple has acquired includes Locationary, Embark, Hop Stop, WifiSLAM, and BroadMap.

    Image via Apple

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