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During today's fourth quarter earnings call, Tim Cook announced that Apple has completed a total of 15 "strategic" acquisitions during the course of fiscal 2013, which equates to one acquisition every three to four weeks.
Over the course of the year, Apple has focused on purchasing quite a few mapping companies, with the aim of improving its mapping services. Acquisitions have included Embark, HopStop, WifiSLAM, and Locationary.
Apple has also recently acquired data compression startup AlgoTrim, personal assistant app Cue, wireless chip developer Passif Semiconductor, and discovery and recommendation startup Matcha.tv.
While quite a few of Apple's acquisitions have been made public, a number of deals have clearly remained under the radar and may come to light as Apple works to unveil products in new categories over the course of 2014.
According to Tim Cook, Apple has "great products" coming in categories that Apple does not currently participate in, potentially alluding to its iWatch or upcoming advances in the television industry.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)this year's acquisitions prove that Apple is running out of innovation
the only solution when you no longer have good ideas is to buy others'
Desperate attempt to put a negative spin on things.
Buying a company is the same thing as hiring a new employee, just at a bigger scale. Do you think Apple shouldn't hire any new employees either?
I can't wait to see the new categories! :D
Oh you meant the ugliest product of the year? *cough Samsung Galaxy Gear ... The year's ugliest & useless biggest flop!*Also hope that if they do end up going with a watch they don't pull of a Samsung. Don't rush the product entirely, but get it close to perfection. :D
Image (http://www.electric-chicken.co.uk/itoilet/toilet_06.jpg)
Whaaat? No 'wireless' version? :DBetter they spend their money in the computer industry than throwing it away for the greedy Mr Buffet.
Actually Mr. Buffet said Apple management is great and should just keep doing what they are doing. Perhaps you mean another greedy billionaire.
this year's acquisitions prove that Apple is running out of innovation
the only solution when you no longer have good ideas is to buy others'
This is a silly comment, because it suggests that the purchase of cool small companies is a new thing for Apple when every major success from the last 15 years relied heavily on buyouts, even if the final products didn't align with the original business plans of the acquired companies.