Apple Acquires Locationary For Crowd-Sourced Maps Improvement

Apple has been known to acquire small startup companies every now and then, and well they're usually nothing to write home about, this one is particular interesting. The Cupertino-based company has acquired Locationary, a location data company that relies on crowd-sourced information for real-time data.

While Apple has declined to comment on the acquisition and what it plans to do with the new resources, it's no doubt that the buyout will go towards improving Apple Maps, which experienced a dismal launch when it was released alongside iOS 6 last year. The company is continuing to make improvements, but it seems they're wanting to add a bit more to it.

It's possible that the Locationary acquisition may be the chance for Apple to put control of the Maps app into the users hands. Seeing as how Locationary is like a Wikipedia for local business listings, Apple could rely on its users to input points-of-interests and other landmarks to keep their maps up to date.

Apple could also make their Maps app a bit more like Waze, with crowd-sourced traffic information that Apple users could submit. Of course, this method isn't entirely foolproof, but it's treated Waze well, and it gives you a real-time look at travel information as you drive. Apple hasn't been to open to the crowd-sourcing trend, so the likelihood of something like this happening seems pretty low. However, Apple has never been without surprises, so a crowd-sourced Apple Maps could be in the works in some way, but we'll ultimately have to wait and see what happens.

SOURCE: AllThingsD