Cue Acquired By Apple To Take On Google

It is nothing new for Apple to acquire new companies, therefore personal assistant ‘Cue’ is the latest “victim” that the Cupertino giant has targeted, and this is to be good news for iOS users. The good news comes is due to many of the features offered by ‘Cue’ mimic those of Google Now. Nothing is sure if the features provided by ‘Cue’ will be implemented into the new Apple tech, but anything is possible, we need only see it in time.

Cue essentially aggregates data from social networks and otherwise (Gmail, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) to present relevant information at the relevant time for you. Flight bookings and hotel reservations are also included, and Cue has been offering these features before Google Now was officially introduced. You might soon see your daily calendars get populated automatically in iOS 7, but that’s far away from now.

On its website, Cue said it is shutting down its service and issuing refunds to paid customers, but did not offer much in the way of explanation. Cue began life as mobile search company Greplin, before changing names and shifting to the personal assistant arena.

“We appreciate all of the support from you, our users, as Cue has grown over the last few years,” Cue said. “However, the Cue service is no longer available.”

It also said no data was being transferred to another party and that all information it had has been deleted.

“We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause you,” the company said.

The deal value is said to be upward of $40 million, up to around $60 million, though that figure may include earnouts or other incentive pay.

Thank you NextPowerUp and AllTHingsD for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of NextPowerUp.