If tracking Santa Claus on Christmas Eve is your kind of thing, or if you’re the type of person who’d like to know when a missle is entering your airspace, then you’re probably interested to know that Apple just bought up a Canadian company called Poly9. There’s not much information on the deal for the acquisition, but it’s noted that Poly9 has been working with Apple, Microsoft, and NORAD among others in the last couple of months.
What’s Poly9?
We’re not overly certain, as it seems that their website has been taken down, or it might be getting hammered by the media right now. From what we’ve been able to gather from the snippets around the internet, Poly9 has a pretty nifty 3D world mapping software bundle that works across all major browsers. It just works, without a download and without a plugin. If that’s not something that screams Apple, we don’t know what does.
What’s it mean?
Well, it’s starting to look like Apple might just be getting into the Google Maps or GPS space. Considering the number of iPhone users on the planet, I’m pretty sure Apple would be able to successfully market a dedicated iPhone GPS application. You should also keep in mind that Apple has also purchased Placebase, and then subsequently took it offline as well. A quick look at screenshots show that Placebase was lacking the polish that Apple’s used to shipping in their applications. Could Poly9 be the front end for a Placebase mapping system?
Article Via AppleInsider
