First, quasi-artificial intelligence. Next, realistic, three-dimensional maps? Pundits are tossing predictions all around the Web today regarding Apple's future plans, stemming from confirmations that the company has acquired C3 Technologies. It's 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 purchase of Poly9 last year.
According to 9to5 Mac, three C3 Technologies employees have now joined Apple's iOS team–CEO Mattias Astrom, CFO Kjell Cederstrand, and lead Product Manager Ludvig Emgard. However, C3 Technologies as a whole has continued to work out of its headquarters in Sweden. And C3 Technologies has allegedly taken on a new name as part of the acquisition: It's now Apple's "Sputnik" division.
The acquisition itself actually took place last year, and it's rumored to be worth around $240 million (although some estimates pegged its value at an eye-popping $1 billion). It's an ideal 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'll see on the video demonstration of the company's maps below.
So where does that leave the future of mapping on iOS? Current speculation suggests that Apple will ultimately cut ties with Google in favor of the mapping database provided by its first acquisition, Placebase. There's no indication as to when that might be, however, especially since Apple recently renewed its partnership with Google – a tenuous relationship, at best – to keep Google Maps integrated with iOS for the time being.
That said, Apple continues to drop clues that a Google-less future is in the works. For example, the company specifically said that it's already working on a crowd-sourced traffic database that's intended to improve its Maps app's traffic service "in the next couple of years."
Naturally, the three-dimensional mapping technologies offered by Poly9 and C3 Technologies are expected to appear in a future version of the iOS Maps application. Whether they're bolted onto an underlying framework provided by Google, or debuted as part of the aforementioned Google-less Maps app, remains to be seen.
But just as Apple acquired its way to the eventual debut of its Siri voice assistant on the iPhone 4S, one can expect that Apple's groundwork toward revitalizing the Maps experience is taking a similar route. But when?
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