In the past years, we all know how Apple desperately tried and eventually failed to bring its own location based services and maps for its users. In 2012, Apple had decided to use its own Apple map instead of Google Maps. However, the Apple Map services were so poor that it faced criticism from users and everyone from the tech community. Thus, in December 2012, Apple was forced to abandon Apple Maps and bring back Google Maps which offered a lot more features. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook even issued a public apology concerning the matter.
Now this year Apple seems to be looking to improve on their location based services by acquiring WifiSlam, an indoor GPS location service for $20 million. WifiSlam was founded back in 2010 by Joseph Huang and Jessica Tsoong. WifiSlam makes use of mobile apps to determine the exact location of a person inside a building via wi-fi signals
WifiSlam uses simultaneous location and mapping(SLAM) technique where the device bots build maps of the surrounding and keep track of the device’s location in the map. You can watch Huang talk about SLAM in the following YouTube video:
- TAGSAppleAquisitionWifiSlam
