Ondrej Holzman The first year was far from rosy for Apple's maps, but the Californian company is not giving up and by purchasing the WifiSLAM company, it shows that it intends to continue the fight in the map field. Apple had to pay around 20 million dollars (400 million crowns) for WifiSLAM.
Saying that Apple "buys small technology companies from time to time", an Apple spokesperson also confirmed the entire transaction, but refused to talk about the details. WifiSLAM, a two-year-old startup, deals with technologies for detecting mobile devices inside buildings, which uses a Wi-Fi signal. Joseph Huang, a former software engineer at Google, is also a co-founder of the company.
With this step, Apple is fighting back against Google, which also maps indoor spaces takes its steps. The maps that Apple used to replace Google Maps in its devices were not very successful and after Tim Cook's apology the developers in Cupertino had to fix a lot of bugs, but when it comes to indoor maps, Apple is entering relatively uncharted territory where everyone is just getting started.
Various techniques can be used to determine the position inside buildings, i.e. where GPS does not help. For example, Google combines several things at once: the nearest Wi-Fi hotspots, data from radio communication towers and manually uploaded building plans. Although uploading plans is a rather lengthy process, Google is doing quite well so far, having received over 10 plans from users from different countries around the world. After all, it also took a long time to get the data into Google Street View, but the result was worth it.
WifiSLAM, now owned by Apple, has not disclosed its technology, but claims it can pinpoint a building's position to within 2,5 meters using only surrounding Wi-Fi signals already available on site. However, WifiSLAM does not provide too many details about its activities, and after the buyout, its entire website was shut down.
Although indoor mapping is still in its infancy, Apple still loses out to the competition. For example, Google has closed partnerships with companies such as IKEA, The Home Depot (an American furniture retailer) or Mall of America (a giant American shopping center), while Microsoft claims to cooperate with nine of the largest American shopping centers, while its solution for mapping the interior of buildings introduced in Bing Maps and announced more than 3 available locations last October.
But it's not just Apple, Google and Microsoft. As part of the "In-Location Alliance", Nokia, Samsung, Sony Mobile and nineteen other companies are also developing location-determining technology in buildings. This alliance likely uses a combination of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signals.
The battle for the title of number one in mapping the interior of buildings is therefore open...
