Key Takeaways
- Apple has acquired more than 100 companies, many of which remain undisclosed.
- Notable acquisitions include Fleetsmith, Dark Sky, and Shazam.
- Apple’s largest acquisition was Beats Electronics for $3 billion, followed by Intel’s smartphone modem business for $1 billion.
Apple is known to have acquired over 100 companies. However, this is undoubtedly a significant under-reporting, considering that Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that the iPhone maker acquires a new company on average every two to three weeks, and has acquired 20 to 25 companies in a six-month period alone. Most of Apple’s acquisitions are made without the public’s knowledge, unless revealed by the media. This is because the company wants to keep the technologies it’s working on secret and limit skepticism about their integration with current or future products.
We considered many acquisitions for this list, but decided not to include some because we could not say with certainty that a particular acquisition led to a particular technology or product. At least 11 companies have been involved in the development and evolution of Siri, and three more are involved in Face ID. There are undoubtedly many more acquisitions Apple has made that are worth investigating. Nevertheless, here are 11 of the most interesting ones.
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1 Fleetsmith
Mobile device management company acquired in 2020 for an undisclosed amount
Fleetsmith / Pocket-lint
Apple has historically outsourced device management to third parties like Jamf, Kandji, and Moysle, but the allure of potential services revenue may have been what prompted Apple to acquire Fleetsmith. Apple used the Fleetsmith acquisition to develop its own mobile device management service, Apple Business Essentials, which allows for the enforcement of preferences and deployment of apps.
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2 Dark Sky
Hyperlocal weather app acquired for an undisclosed amount in 2020
Apple / Pocket-lint
Apple’s weather app has not been great to say the least, so when reports emerged that Apple was acquiring popular weather app Dark Sky, it sparked a whole host of mixed emotions.
While many users were excited at the prospect of improvements to Apple’s weather app, others were equally upset at the loss of an incredibly accurate weather app. isDark Sky was released by Apple, but the service was eventually discontinued. Instead, developers could turn to WeatherKit, a service that provides affordable weather data. Four years later, Apple Weather still doesn’t seem as good as Dark Sky.
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3 Intel’s smartphone modem business
In 2019, it acquired the company’s entire cellular modem division for $1 billion.
Intel
Apple acquired Intel’s emerging smartphone modem business to reduce its reliance on incumbent 5G modem provider Qualcomm. Apple and Qualcomm have previously battled in court over excessive royalties. Despite acquiring Intel’s 2,200 employees, 17,000 wireless technology patents, and an unknown amount of intellectual property, Apple has yet to develop a Qualcomm-equivalent modem replacement within three years. Analysts expect Apple to do so within three years.
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Four Shazam
Music identification app acquired in 2018 for $400 million
Shazam
When Apple acquired music recognition app Shazam, it wasn’t clear what the company would do with the app. Six years later, Shazam still operates as an Apple subsidiary and is ad-free for all users. Despite the acquisition, Shazam still supports Android devices and is further integrated with Apple’s operating system for faster voice recognition.
Five texture
Digital magazine subscription service acquired in 2018 for $485 million
apple
Texture was a digital magazine subscription service that offered access to more than 200 magazines for $10 per month. Apple shut down Texture in mid-2018 and transitioned magazine publishers and subscribers to Apple’s own digital magazine service, Apple News+, which was released in 2019.
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6 Bedit
The sleep-tracking tech company was acquired for an undisclosed amount in 2017.
Bedit / Pocket Lint
Apple’s acquisition of Finnish sleep-tracking hardware company Beddit was discovered via a quiet privacy policy update informing Beddit users that the company had been acquired by Apple and that their data would now be governed by Apple’s privacy policy.
At the time of the acquisition, there was a lot of hope that Beddit’s technology would be used to make the Apple Watch a great sleep tracker. Though sleep tracking was added to the Apple Watch in watchOS 7, it’s still pretty rudimentary and nowhere near the data that Beddit’s tracker can provide.
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7 Primephonic
The classical music streaming service was acquired for an undisclosed amount in 2017.
Primphonic
Classical music service Primephonic was acquired with the belief that it would be used to improve the classical music experience on Apple Music. Classical music listeners expect a different experience and information set than other music genres, so it makes sense that Apple would want to improve that experience to attract more users.
The Californian tech giant had planned to release a classical music-only streaming app, Apple Music Classical, for Apple Music subscribers in 2023, but shut down Primephonic in 2021, two years before that, leaving an awkward void for classical music listeners.
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8 Workflow
An iOS automation app purchased for an undisclosed amount in 2017
apple
Workflow was a popular automation app that allowed users to automate a series of tasks with a single tap. In 2018, Workflow eventually became a Siri Shortcut.
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9 Beats Electronics
Audio technology company acquired in 2014 for $3 billion
Beets / Pocket Lint
Unlike other tech giants that have acquired companies for tens of billions of dollars, such as Microsoft and Activision Blizzard, which bought LinkedIn, Beats is Apple’s largest acquisition ever. Founded in 2006 by famous rapper Dr. Dre and record executive Jimmy Iovine, the music lifestyle brand is best known for its range of bass-heavy headphones, earphones, and speakers.
Unlike most of Apple’s acquisitions, Beats has continued to operate as an Apple subsidiary rather than being fully absorbed by the iPhone maker. Rumor has it that Apple has retained the Beats brand to absorb the best music engineering talent into its own research and development team and develop alternative headphone and earphone products based on AirPod hardware and engineering. Beats is expected to remain a highly profitable business for Apple, exceeding the original acquisition price.
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Ten Authentec
The fingerprint recognition and biometric security company was acquired in 2012 for $356 million.
Apple / Pocket-lint
AuthenTec is a mobile security company known for its biometric security and fingerprint sensor technology. Apple acquired the company to use AuthenTec’s license and patent portfolio to develop Touch ID, which will be unveiled on the iPhone 5S.
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11 Next
A computer hardware and software company acquired in 1996 for $400 million
NeXT / Pocket-lint
NeXT was and will remain Apple’s most important acquisition. While NeXT’s technology certainly played a key role in the future success of the Mac, it was Steve Jobs’ return to Apple that changed the company’s fortunes.
Jobs founded NeXT in 1985 after leaving Apple to develop cutting-edge computer hardware and software. Apple acquired NeXT 14 years later and used its NeXTSTEP operating system as the basis for Mac OS X.
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