Filip Novotny Apple made fifteen acquisitions of smaller companies during the 2013 fiscal year. Tim Cook announced this during yesterday's conference call, during which the financial results for the last quarter of this year were announced. These "strategic" acquisitions could help Apple improve existing products as well as develop future ones.
The Californian company thus made an average of one acquisition every three to four weeks. It focused on companies dealing with map technologies, such as Embark, HopStop, WifiSLAM or Locationary. These are mostly startups that focused on providing information about traffic in cities or better targeting of phones using cellular networks and Wi-Fi. These acquisitions could really come in handy for Apple, because it currently offers maps on phones, tablets and computers with the arrival of OS X Mavericks.
Among other things, Apple also acquired Matcha.tv, a startup offering personalized recommendations for video content. This know-how can be useful in the iTunes store when offering movies and series in a targeted manner. Even Apple TV could benefit from it, no matter what it looks like next year.
Among those bought out this year is also the company Passif Semiconductor, which produces wireless chips that require a minimum of energy to operate. Bluetooth LE technology, for which both the iPhone and iPad are ready, is currently being used mainly in fitness devices that require a long battery life. It's not hard to imagine the benefits this technology could have for the soon-to-be iWatch.
The assumption that Apple will use the know-how of companies acquired in this way for its future products is also underlined by the fact that while Apple openly announced some acquisitions, it tried to hide others from the public.
Next year we could expect several completely new product lines; after all, Tim Cook himself hinted at it at yesterday's conference. According to him, Apple can use its experience in the development of hardware, software and services to create products in categories that it has not yet participated in.
While this leaves a lot of room for interpretation, we may not have to dwell on these considerations for too long. “As you may have seen in recent months, I keep my word. In April of this year, I said that you would see new products from us this fall and throughout 2014." Yesterday, Tim Cook mentioned the possible expansion of the scope once more: "We remain very confident about Apple's future and see great potential in existing and new product lines."
Those who have longed for an Apple-branded smartwatch or a real, large Apple TV could wait until next year. The Californian company can, of course, surprise us with something completely different.
"However, the Californian company can, of course, surprise us with something completely different."
– this is also my wish, I wish, in the last X years, absolutely everything will escape from the production, assumptions are already facts slowly at 99%, even this article already talks about concrete advice, TC is trying to obfuscate in vain and pretend to be mysterious. Damage.
All? Even the new look of the Mac Pro, for example?
Don't forget that Mac Pro is made in the USA, so that's exactly why. Amici stick together and don't take pictures of products on the production line in order to monetize them, but the same cannot be said about China :-/
There is not much that Apple is coming up with. It misses what is produced by the Chinese and what goes into production ahead of time to be available right after the Keynote. If people were willing to wait for the presented product two to three months after the introduction at the presentation, then nothing much would be lost either. But they are not, so don't be surprised that it is known in advance.
In my opinion, acquisitions are made in order to help Apple in what they are not doing so well, or to have a circle of customers or buyers that Apple does not have or cannot reach. They certainly don't buy them just for fun because they have hafo hunts on their account