Immediately after Apple officially announced that it had bought up Kinect inventor PrimeSense for $360 million, many analysts began speculating that Apple would use PrimeSense’s technology as the basis for key applications on its long-rumored “iTV.” But Jessica Lessin’s sources say that Apple had been eyeing PrimeSense not for anything TV-related but for its ability to help the company improve its oft-maligned iOS Maps application.
In particular, Lessin’s source claims that “PrimeSense’s technology is much more strategic for mapping” and that “PrimeSense’s motion-sensing technology for gestural controls is a little bit behind and that Microsoft doesn’t use it in the Kinect” for its next-generation Xbox One. Apple has been plugging a lot of money into improving iOS Maps so it definitely makes sense that it would use PrimeSense’s technology to get some kind of edge over Google in the mapping realm.
