Apple buys ‘social’ location service Spotsetter

Apple has acquired the company behind social location service Spotsetter for an undisclosed sum. This would enable it to provide its map service Maps with ‘relevant’ data, in order to compete better with, for example, Google Maps.

The acquisition primarily relates to the technology behind Spotsetter and the knowledge of its two founders, Stephen Tse and Johnny Lee. The two worked for Google for a while on the Maps service of the internet company. According to TechCrunch, Apple is not taking over all of Spotsetter’s other employees.

The Spotsetter app collects recommendations from friends about specific places to add a ‘social’ layer to a map service. To do that, it uses an algorithm that searches content from friends on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Foursquare. In total, the algorithm’s list included some 30 sites, including Yelp, Zagat, The New York Times, Michelin and TripAdvisor.

Founder Johhny Lee has announced on the company’s website that the current Spotsetter will disappear. The app had more than five million users last summer. It is not known how much Apple paid, but according to TechCrunch investors would be “satisfied”.