Los Angeles — Mapping lies at the heart of the smartphone experience Nokia delivered last week with its Lumia devices, and the company’s deployment of its Navteq acquisition has been one of its rare illustration of genius in the alien mobile web world. Aiming to take its operating system iOS to the next stage, Apple has apparently acquired Sweden based 3D mapping company, C3 Technologies, in a bid to build out its mapping capabilities, according to the blog 9to5Mac.
That news emerged according to anonymous sources speaking to the blog 9to5Mac, which suggests that the C3 purchase, combined with earlier acquisitions of mapping-software companies Placebase and Poly9, means Apple is trying to wean its iOS devices off Google Maps.
According to 9to5Mac, Apple, which has been outstripped on this front by its major rivals, is chasing hard to catch up, and since the debut of iPhone in 2007, Apple’s iOS devices have made use of an Apple-built Google Maps application to provide users with a quick glance at driving directions to the destination.
Besides, Apple continued to improve its operating system iOS and its use in mapping. In an attempt to counter escalating rivalry and technological innovation, Apple, last summer went a step further in pursuit of a completely in-house mapping solution and acquired a 3D mapping firm called Poly9, reports 9to5Mac.
Now Apple has acquired a 3D mapping company called C3 Technologies, this is Apple’s third acquisition of a mapping company since 2009, and Apple’s second acquisition centered on three-dimensional mapping technology since the company’s acquisition of Poly9 last year, which now suggests that we could soon be seeing 3D mapping coming to iOS, as Apple moves away from Google Maps for its location services, wrote 9to5Mac reporter Mark Gurman.
Amazingly, the firm was actually taken over by a mystery buyer in August, which now appears, was Apple. Moving forward, the iPhone maker closed down the operation and enclosed its products and employees into the iOS division, keeping former CEO Mattias Astrom, CFO Kjell Cederstrand, and lead product manager Ludvig Emgard. Besides, its other team members will be stationed in Sweden as an Apple unit named ‘Sputnik’.
C3 Technologies makes amazingly detailed 3D maps, taking its info from: (declassified missile-targeting methods). In theory, Apple could use its portfolio of mapping-technology acquisitions to craft a robust maps platform deeply consolidated with other iOS features such as Siri.
In his report, Gurman described that C3 Technologies develops incredibly high-quality and detailed 3D maps with virtually no input from humans. The 3D mapping is camera based and the technology grabs buildings, homes, and even smaller objects like trees.
In fact, it is all photo-realistic, with even minute details like trees, cars and people fully visible. It makes Google Maps look like toy town. In turn, that would challenge already-strong maps offerings from Microsoft and Nokia as well.
Moreover, such purchases also plays an important role in keeping the iPhone differentiated–as the iPhone 4S indicated, it becomes harder to make a handset stand out on the basis of performance, and Apple is cautious about tinkering too much with its basic user experience, so it will rely on new embedded functionality like the Siri voice recognition system.
Besides, it is a perfect fit for Apple, as it fits the company’s tendency to look inward and acquire solutions for technologies that it otherwise sources from third-party vendors – like, for example, Google Maps. And it just so happens that the C3 Technologies’ mapping solutions have earned themselves the unofficial description of, “Google Maps on steroids,” as you will see on the video demonstration of the company’s maps below.
Below are some of the mind blowing video demos:
{iframe width=”640″ height=”480″ }http://www.youtube.com/embed/gSmunh6NIQI{/iframe}
Here is one of an early version running on an iPad:
{iframe width=”640″ height=”480″ }http://www.youtube.com/embed/gBkHpjEvdGs{/iframe}
This one shows Google Maps on steroids:
{iframe width=”640″ height=”360″ }http://www.youtube.com/embed/BaahKhvO_E4{/iframe}
And while we are at it, here is one of how the maps are put together:
{iframe width=”640″ height=”360″ }http://www.youtube.com/embed/CNemPTHOKWg{/iframe}