Apple Appears to Have Acquired GPS Firm Coherent Navigation [Confirmed]
In one of its latest efforts to bolster its mapping capabilities, Apple appears to have acquired Coherent Navigation, a Bay Area GPS-related firm founded in 2008 by engineers from Stanford and Cornell.
One of Coherent Navigation's areas of focus was High Integrity GPS ("iGPS"), a system that combines signals from the traditional mid-earth orbit GPS satellites with those from the low-earth satellites of voice and data provider Iridium to offer greater accuracy and precision, higher signal integrity, and greater jam resistance. Iridium touts iGPS as having the potential to provide location information accurate to within centimeters.

A number of Coherent's key employees recently began working for Apple, including tech veteran and CEO Paul Lego in January and co-founders William Bencze and Brent Ledvina as of last month. Coherent's website has also been taken offline, but on April 30 the name servers for the domain were updated to point to Apple's servers.
It is unclear exactly what the Coherent Navigation team is working on at Apple and whether there was a specific technology Apple was interested in or if it simply wanted to apply the expertise of Coherent's employees to its own projects. Lego simply notes that he is now a member of Apple's Maps team, while Ledvina and Bencze are working in similar location engineering roles.
Coherent Navigation would be just the latest in a long string of mapping-related acquisitions Apple has made over the last several years, including the developers behind Pin Drop, Locationary, WifiSLAM, Hopstop, Embark, and Broadmap. Apple has continued to improve its mapping services since a rough transition away from Google Maps with the release of iOS 6 in 2012, with the company working to add features like transit information and perhaps Street View-like imagery to its services.
Update: Apple has given its standard confirmation statement to The New York Times.
“Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” the company said.
No other details on the deal have been released.
Popular Stories
Apple today released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, the fourth major updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating system updates that came out last year. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 come two months after Apple released iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to...
iOS 19 will not be available on the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, or the iPhone XS Max, according a private account on social media site X that has accurately provided information on device compatibility in the past.
The iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max all have an A12 Bionic chip, so it looks like iOS 19 will discontinue support for that chip. All other iPhones that run iOS 18 are expected...
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Apple today released new firmware updates for all AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2 models. The new firmware is version 7E93, up from the 7B21 firmware that was installed on the AirPods Pro 2 and the 7B20 firmware available on the AirPods 4 and AirPods 4 with ANC.
It is not immediately clear what new features or changes are included in the new firmware, but we'll update this article should we find ...
Apple's big developer event is a little over two months away, and rumors about what we can expect to see in Apple's next major operating system updates are becoming increasingly frequent.
A public release of iOS 18.4 is also imminent with a number of updates and improvements, although we won't be getting the major Apple Intelligence Siri upgrades that had reportedly been planned for this...
Multiple sources have claimed that iOS 19 will introduce a new design with more translucent buttons, menus, notification banners, and more, and there is now another clue that points towards this glass-like appearance.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today said the new design project is codenamed "Solarium" internally. A solarium is a room with glass walls that allow in plenty of sunlight, so this...
Apple today released macOS Sequoia 15.4, the fourth major update to the macOS Sequoia operating system that launched in September. macOS Sequoia 15.4 comes two months after the launch of macOS Sequoia 15.3.
Mac users can download the macOS Sequoia update through the Software Update section of System Settings. It is available for free on all Macs able to run macOS 15.
With...
Apple is reportedly working on a new Magic Mouse. Below, we recap what to expect.
The two key rumors for the Magic Mouse 3 so far include a relocated charging port, along with a more ergonomic design.
It was briefly rumored that the Magic Mouse 3 would also feature voice control, but that was misinterpreted information.
Relocated Charging Port
While the Magic Mouse switched from...