Saturday, August 24, 2013

Report: Apple Buys Embark Transit App to Boost Maps

Apple Buys Embark

Apple has reportedly made another acquisition intended to bolster its struggling Maps app.

According to former Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Lessin, Apple has purchased Embark, Inc. and will incorporate the company's tech into Apple Maps.

"We make mass transit simple," Embark says on its website. It has apps for transit systems in Boston, Chicago, New Jersey, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. with trip planning, interactive maps, and alerts.

It sounds similar to HopStop, another public transit app that Apple purchased in July. Also last month, Apple inked a deal to acquire crowdsourced location data company Locationary,

Apple confirmed the deal to Lessin. Embark did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Embark dates back to 2011. It was previously known as Pandav but re-branded as Embark in Jan. 2012. "We fell in love with the name Embark because it encompasses what we do now and our aspirations for the future," the company said at the time.

In Nov. 2012, BMW made a strategic investment in Embark, which was intended to help Embark "explore ways to partner with BMW and to expand geographically," the company said at the time. BMW is among the car manufacturers that has committed to Siri Eyes Free.

The Embark purchase comes after CEO Tim Cook publicly apologized for Apple maps in late September, even suggesting that users, in the meantime, use rival applications like Bing, MapQuest, and Waze (since acquired by Google).

Source: http://feeds.ziffdavis.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/breakingnews/~3/gtpm13YCjTs/0,2817,2423479,00.asp

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