Apple has quietly purchased Poly9 Group, a Quebec-based mapping firm. Amid all the buzz about Apple’s iPhone 4 press conference and the other goodies, Apple’s snagging of Poly9 is their second mapping acquisition in a year.
The Cupertino firm purchased Los Angeles-based Placebase, a company that made commercial mapping software like Pushpin, in July of last year.
It is expected that Apple is angling towards their own form of Google Earth. Poly9 made software used to produce maps in both online and offline capacities. They also boast a 3D mapping tool much like the one used by Google Earth and Mapspread, the latter of which lets users make custom maps using spreadsheet data.
So is Apple getting into the mapping business? Probably. But the usual Apple secrecy is still the order of the day. “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not comment on our purpose or plan,” said spokeswoman Kristin Huguet.
The mapping industry as a whole is growing quickly and these sorts of acquisitions are common as mobile providers and companies try to integrate the maps with mobile devices. Apple actually partnered, sort of, with Google to deliver Google Maps to the iPhone and iPod Touch, so anything’s possible. It’s also probable, given that, that Apple would hope to cut the link to Google by providing their very own mapping app.
