In recent weeks, much speculation has come out as to what Apple may do to help address the problems with its Maps app. One way Apple could get a quick fix in would be by looking into purchasing one or multiple companies that could help give Apple Maps increased and better information.
One company that many think Apple may be planning to purchase is Waze. Waze is one of the most successful mapping apps in the App Store and it has collected a wide variety of user information that other map companies don’t have. Waze is one of the fastest growing mapping apps, currently sitting at roughly 30 million users located around the world, all of which who help deliver unique information back to the software. The app is constantly live-tracking user data to help suggest the fastest route and users can report things such as police speed traps and road construction to help deliver the Waze motto of “Outsmarting Traffic, Together.”
There has also been recent speculation that Apple plans to buy Foursquare as a way of helping to improve Maps. Foursquare would cost Apple over $500 million and would mainly provide the company with information on things such as restaurants and stores. Foursquare has a large amount of active users with most being located within the U.S.
It seems like it would make much more sense for Apple to buy a company like Waze than Foursquare. Apple already partners with Waze in terms of collecting information for Maps and many of the complaints against the Maps app have been directed at its poor navigation and location awareness abilities, issues that Waze would greatly help with. Waze collects valuable information from live moving cars, as opposed to Foursquare, which collects stationary people in buildings. Foursquare would certainly bring its own advantages as well, but perhaps they aren’t as important right now as Apple’s main priority should be making their service more functional and reliable.
Maybe Apple will just go all in and buy both companies? Either way, it will be interesting to see what steps Apple will take to try and revive its infamous app. If Apple did manage to pick up both companies, it would certainly help it compete with Google’s mapping service in relatively short order.
