Apple has quietly acquired the Spotsetter app, which provides personalized recommendations for places to go.
No formal press release has been issued and we get to learn about the acquisition from TechCrunch, which claims that Apple is doing this to boost its mapping service, as well as to add two Spotsetter’s founders, Johnny Lee and Stephen Tse, to its team.
As a result of the acquisition, Spotsetter announced that it is shutting down both on iOS and Android.
The company’s technology taps into social networks — including Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Instagram — to determine what sort of places users like to visit. Spotsetter also pulls in content from sites like Zagat, OpenTable and Yelp to show detailed information about places.
As of last year, Spotsetter had 5 million user profiles and 40 million venues in its database.
Apple on its end has been working round the clock to improve its mapping service. To that end, they’ve acquired few companies in the past, including transit navigation service HopStop and mapping company Embark.