Apple Acquires Augmented Reality Company Metaio

Apple has acquired Metaio, a bootstrapped augmented reality startup that launched way back in 2003 as an offshoot of a project at Volkswagon. The company’s site said it stopped taking new customers, and now a legal document shows Apple has bought it. The document confirms a transfer of shares of the startup to Apple.

When asked by TechCrunch, Apple responded with its standard reply it gives as confirmation of acquistions, “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”

The company began showing signs that something was clearly amiss when it canceled its user conference in San Francisco earlier this month and later took down the company’s Twitter accounts. It also posted on its website a couple of days ago that it was ending purchase of products and subscriptions. Email tech support ends June 30th.

A source told TechCrunch that clients who use Metaio are “flipping out” after seeing the message on the website and not hearing a word from the company about what’s going on. This person says the company hasn’t so much as sent an email to its own customers about the situation.

As this source pointed out, Metaio hasn’t taken a dime of venture capital, meaning it’s all private, making it much easier to keep the story quiet.

The company is well established. Many impressive projects have been produced using its tools including this one of with Ferrari that gives a potential buyer an AR tour of the car (as though the actual car isn’t cool enough):

And this one for travelers in Berlin to see what the scene they are looking at would have looked like when the Berlin Wall was up. The program uses historical footage that you can see by pointing your smartphone or tablet at a particular place.

Metaio boasts a big community of developers with a 1000 customers and 150,000 users worldwide in 30 countries. All of them are wondering what’s up right now. The acquisition could help Apple bolster its virtual reality and augmented reality efforts. Earlier this year, Apple patented a VR headset that works with iPhones.

Featured Image: YouTube/MetaioAR

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