Apple has confirmed its acquisition of HopStop, a mass transit directions app. HopStop has roughly two-million active users and was founded back in 2005. HopStop’s iOS and Android application offers cycling, public transit, walking, and taxi directions in over 500 cities worldwide. The app also includes a crowdsourced service that allows users to report delays and other information to their fellow commuters. The app also takes information from various sources to help commuters and travelers find featured businesses and shops as well.
Mass transit and cycling directions are two things that Apple’s own Maps app currently lacks. The purchase of HopStop will allow Apple to more easily incorporate this information with their app, giving a more full experience and two less reasons to use Google Maps, an iOS application that does offer both cycling and mass transit directions. Personally, if these two features were reliably added to Apple Maps, I would switch from Google Maps in a heartbeat.
This isn’t the first Maps-related acquisition Apple has made over the past 24-hours. Earlier today, we reported on Apple acquiring Locationary: a croudsourced location data company. Unfortunately for us, Apple hasn’t released specific information on either of these acquisitions including purpose or pricing.
