Petr Škuta Apple confirmed the purchase of another company. This time it is the British company iKinema, which focused on special effects in films.
Apple was interested in the British company iKinema mainly because of its advanced technologies in the field of motion sensing. At the same time, the British's clients included big names such as Disney, Fox and Tencent. The employees will now strengthen Apple's various divisions, especially those focused on augmented reality and Animoji / Memoji.
An Apple representative gave The Financial Times the standard blanket statement:
"Apple buys smaller companies from time to time, and we don't usually disclose the purpose of the purchase or our next plans."
The company iKinema created software for movies, but also computer games, which was able to scan the entire body very accurately and then transfer this real movement to an animated character. The acquisition thus further underlines Apple's efforts in the field of augmented reality, computer games, interactive face capture for Animoji / Memoji. They will probably be reinforced as well teams involved in the development of an AR headset or glasses.
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Clients of iKinema were also Microsoft and/or Fox
The British company has developed for major players in the film and technology industries. However, after being bought out by Apple, the website is partially down. However, it originally contained references to technology companies such as Microsoft, Tencent, Intel, Nvidia, film companies Disney, Fox, Framestore and Foundry, or game development studios including Sony, Valve, Epic Games and Square Enix.
One of the latest films where iKinema contributed its technology is Thor: Ragnarok and Blade Runner: 2049.
Earlier this year, Tim Cook announced that the company had bought 6-20 small companies and startups in the last 25 months. Most of these subjects had to do with augmented reality.
