What the Heck? Apple Acquires Maps Company

Apple acquires maps company. Shocking news indeed. I know I am late to the actual news, but the idea of Apple owning a maps company is a rather intriguing idea. One that deserves attention, exploration and a little imagination…

First off, the facts. From Gizmodo:

The Apple/Google divorce continues to come into focus: Apple quietly bought Placebase, a mapping service company, back in July. Apple doesn’t buy companies it’s not going to use. Meaning, Apple’s getting into making their own maps. Peace out, Google.

According to Gizmodo, the main reason for the purchase was the fact that the application had a very good API with great customization abilities.

Many astute commenters in the Gizmodo article point out that if Apple takes Google Maps off of the iPhone, they will encounter many issues, including not having many key Google Map features (streetview, traffic).

My guess is that Apple will use this aquisition for several purposes.

A) Geotagging. The iPhone is becoming one of the most popular cameras on Flickr. I bet that Apple will use this company to expand their photo geo tagging features, implanting the equivalent to an Eye-Fi into the iPhone.

B) For iPhone Apps. When Apple first released the capability to have turn-by-turn apps in the app store, the stated one key limit. You cannot use Google Maps for the apps. While this was most likely done for legal purposes and other apps have taken unique paths to fulfill turn by turn apps, a native turn by turn app would be amazing.

What do you think of the maps company acquisition? Let us know in the comments.

Photo: Chris Blakeley

Post by Looming Tech. Find us on Twitter and check out our other blog, Squealing Rat.

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The Reason Apple Will Not Put This on The iPhone

A recent Gizmodo article showed a new application that would change the lock screen on the iPhone. You can take a look at the video below:

They also said:

I need SmartScreen in my iPhone, an application that allows you to place Dashboard-like widgets on the lock screen, so you can quickly access small pills of information quickly without having to get into applications. Smart, smooth, and oh-so-nice.I don’t know about you, but I wish I could have access to bits of information in my iPhone without having to access the applications themselves. Calendar, Twitter, weather, Facebook updates… widgets that will only display data and, with one click, go straight to the app itself to do an action. That will allow the iPhone to have a customized front end like the Motoblur in the new Motorola Cliq.

I don’t know about you, but I will have to disagree with this request for several reasons.

A) Information overload. Having this app would only increase the information overload on the iPhone.

B) Simplicity works. Not chaos. This application would add unwanted chaos to the clean unlock screen, taking away from the beauty.

C) Battery. The iPhone already has a short battery life. Having an application like this would decrease the already limited capacity.

D) It’s not Apple. Apple is simple, clean and easy. This would not be.

What do you think? Would you jailbrake just for the capability? Will Apple put this on the iPhone? Let us know in the comments!

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