Apple acquires indoor-GPS company WifiSLAM

PanARMENIAN.Net - Apple Inc. has acquired the indoor-GPS company WifiSLAM, a sign that a war over indoor mobile-location services is heating up, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Apple paid around $20 million for the Silicon Valley-based startup, according to a person familiar with the matter who said the deal closed recently.

The acquisition could help Apple catch up with rival Google Inc. in mapping after it cut its ties with the Internet giant over maps last year. Google offers indoor mobile maps of locations like shopping malls and airports for Android users but not for iPhone users. The service is based in part on floor plans.

WifiSLAM, which is roughly two years old, is among a slew of technology companies trying to crack the problem of how to detect a mobile-phone user's location when the user is indoors and traditional GPS technology doesn't work.

Its approach involves detecting a phone user's location in a building using Wi-Fi signals that already exist inside the building. WifiSLAM has been offering the technology to application developers for indoor mapping and new types of retail and social-networking apps.

Indoor mapping and tracking has long been seen as an important, potentially lucrative frontier for technology companies. Analysts and proponents of the technology say it could be used to build apps that direct users to their gate at the airport, provide audio tours in museums or push offers to consumers based on where they are standing inside a store. But indoor mapping hasn't taken off because of technology limitations, including poor Wi-Fi penetration inside buildings. And the business models around indoor location services remain nascent, The Journal says.

An Apple spokesman confirmed the deal, saying the company "buys smaller technology companies from time to time" and generally doesn't discuss its plans. He declined to comment further.

Apple released its own iPhone mapping service last year after using Google mapping data since the phone's inception. But Apple's offering got poor reviews amid user complaints about inaccurate data. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook apologized for the product's quality, and Apple has been working to improve it.