One of the more interesting tidbits from today’s earnings call was a revelation about Apple’s recent acquisitions. Tim Cook said the company has purchased 5 companies since the end of the March quarter, and a total of 29 companies during the past 9 months.
Apparently these numbers do not include the Beats Electronics deal—Apple’s largest acquisition to date—because it has not completely finalized yet, and isn’t expected to until later this quarter. So who are the other companies? These are the ones we know about…
- Spotsetter – Spotsetter combines friends’ recommendations, trusted reviews and other data to offer a more ‘social’ maps experience. It uses an algorithm to pull in users’ content from Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and the like. Using the app, you could look up virtually any place or category, and be presented with custom results, as well as see what your friends said about the places around you. You could also discover new places by browsing popular local hangout spots.
- LuxVue– LuxVue is a stealthy company that has been working on micro-LED screen technologies. The company has managed to remain fairly quiet over the past few years, but what we know is that it develops low-power, micro-LED-based displays for consumer electronics. It was reported that Apple acquired the company to add to their hardware innovations area.
- Burstly – Burstly is the company behind the popular iOS testing platform TestFlight, which allows developers to distribute its apps to beta testers before pushing them to the App Store for release. It also built FlightPath, a mobile analytics solution that entered into beta last year, but it was shut down shortly after the buyout.
- SnappyLabs – SnappyLabs was once a popular camera app that allowed users to take full-resolution pictures at 20 to 30 frames per second. It was built on breakthrough technology that essentially redesigned how JPG images were compressed, allowing the iPhone to shoot full-quality photos at higher FPS than competing tech.
Of course, these are all of Apple’s known 2014 purchases, and only Spotsetter and LuxVue were reported on after April. So that means it’s acquired at least 3 companies since April that we don’t know about, and countless others since the beginning of its fiscal 2014.
Additionally, Cook talked about the Beats purchase today, saying Apple felt it was getting an incredible subscription service, rare talent, and access to a fast-growing headphone business. He also said the firm is still very much in the market for ‘strategic’ acquisitions.