The 5 most important acquisitions in the history of Apple - geeko

In 43 years of history, Apple has bought more than a hundred companies. Here are the five most important redemptions ...

Siri, the personal assistant worth 200 million

If Siri is today one of the most popular personal assistants on smartphones, what few people know is that its origin comes from military funding. Indeed, the American Defense Department was looking for an artificial intelligence capable of making decisions on the ground much more easily than a human being. Based on their research on this AI, three engineers working on this project launched in 2007 their own start-up, by the name of Siri. They are therefore developing their assistant, which was launched in 2010 as an independent application on the App Store, and which was to be released a few months later on BlackBerry and Android. Jobs, aware of the potential of the project, personally contacted the designers of Siri, and noted the buyout of the company for $ 200 million. Siri is then an iPhone exclusive.

Shazam, what is this song?

Shazam is one of the most used applications on iPhone since its launch on the App Store in 2007. Based on a complex computer algorithm, the British application is reputed to be able, in just a few seconds, to recognize a song according to its air. . With the takeover launched by Apple in 2017 for nearly $ 400 million, the Apple company has taken over a database of more than 500 million users. This is a definite asset for Apple Music, which sees Shazam users being redirected to the streaming application made in Apple to listen to the previously recognized song.

NeXT, the creation of Steve Jobs

After his forced resignation in 1985 by the Apple board of directors, Steve Jobs is determined to come back to the fore. Thus, he created the company Next, Inc , designer of computers for higher schools and businesses. If the company's hardware sales are relatively low, it then specializes in the creation of software , and that's what catches the eye of Apple, which is looking for a new OS for its Macintosh. Thus in 1996, the Cupertino firm bought all of the shares of NeXT and reinstated Jobs at the head of the company. It is this $ 429 million buyout that will give rise to the creation of Mac OS X.

Intel, the need to develop 5G

It may seem surprising and yet Intel has sold one of its subsidiaries to Apple. It was last year for $ 1 billion. Indeed, Apple is one of the only companies that has not yet communicated on a 5G compatible phone. To catch up, the modem branch of Intel seemed to be a real asset. With this takeover, Apple saves nearly 2,200 employees from unemployment, but above all recovers all of the patents filed by Intel, estimated at 17,000.

Beats Electronics, when the music is good

Founded in 2006 by the American rapper Dr. Dre, Beats has quickly established itself as a key player in audio equipment in the world, but not only, since they also launched in 2014 the streaming service Beats Music. Apple wanting to invest even more in the field of music, the company marks a big blow by spending nearly $ 3 billion to own the young company. This purchase allows the Cupertino company to launch Apple Music a year later, built on the merger of Beats Music and iTunes Radio, the brand's first audio streaming service.

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