Apple Confirms Acquisition of GPS Company Coherent Navigation

Apple has confirmed that it has acquired Coherent Navigation. Among the company's focuses include an enhanced version of GPS, which uses both normal, high-altitude GPS satellites and lower-altitude voice and data satellites (from Iridium) to increase the accuracy of a GPS reading from the ground.

Just how accurate? According to Macrumors, which was the first to report the acquisition, Coherent Navigation can allegedly pinpoint a GPS tracker down to a few centimeters. It's unclear just what, if anything, Coherent Navigation's technology might bolster over at Apple, as it's also possible that the acquisition was for the talent of the team behind the "iGPS" tech. CEO Paul Lego is now working in some capacity on Apple Maps, whereas Coherent Navigation's co-founders are working in location-themed engineering roles, reports Macrumors.

And if you were expecting Apple to clarify its intent behind the acquisition, you just don't know Apple that well.

"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans," an Apple spokesperson said.

We also don't know how much Apple spent to acquire the company, nor even the exact timeline for the acquisition. According to Linkedin, Lego started working for Apple in January, whereas the company's co-founders seemingly jumped on board in April. It's certainly possible that they actually started at Apple earlier, and just didn't update their Linkedin profiles until they absolutely could do so. As Macrumors notes, the nameservers for Coherent Navigation's were officially updated to point to Apple servers at the end of April, adding a bit more evidence to the possible April timeline for an acquisition.

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Of course, said acquisition has once again ignited talks about Apple's alleged electric car research—especially since said electric vehicle, which is rumored to have a 2020 release date, is supposed to have a certain amount of self-driving capabilities. Having a super-accurate GPS setup could certainly assist in that endeavor. Of course, having a super-accurate GPS setup could also assist normal smartphone users in getting around the world.