Apple has bought a personal assistant app in an apparent bid to directly compete with Google Now. The app, Cue, cost between $40 million and $60 million, according to a report from TechCrunch.
TechCrunch got the sales figure - which is rumored to be closer to $50 or $60 million - from a few anonymous sources, but the price tag, according to the report, is definitely at least $35 million. That's a lot of money for a relatively unknown app, but Cue is expected to help Apple's Siri compete with Google Now. Both are customizable personal search and stream services.
Cue, which launched as Greplin in early 2011 and got the new moniker this year, is a social search engine, which indexes email and users' other personal details from social media into a personalized calendar. The app closed its service down recently, refunding premium subscribers as it prepared for acquisition from Apple. Rumors over the buy-out have been floating around since at least mid-September.
Besides bolstering intelligent personal assistant Siri, Cue technology - which provides quick information panels similar to Google Now and smart notifications for an overview of upcoming invitations, events, which also provides related information like phone numbers, invitations, tickets, receipts and more - could be used to make the new iOS 7 contextual notifications more robust and ready to take on Google Now, especially the "Today" screen of the notification center.
According to Tech Crunch, Apple has not officially confirmed the purchase, but got a general statement that comes as close as one might get to a confirmation, saying "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."