Apple acquires Cue, personal assistant app for the iPhone and iPad
Relative to previous years, Apple has been on an acquisition spree in recent years, with the company confirming today that they acquired a personal assistant app called Cue.
Cue works by combing through a user's varied internet accounts, determining what's useful, and then aggregating it all into a single "intelligent" snapshot.
Before being pulled from the App Store (shocking!), Cue's features were described thusly:
Cue intelligently ties together and surfaces useful information at the right time across all your accounts. From email, contacts and calendars to Facebook posts, Dropbox files and LinkedIn -- Cue makes it easy to contact the people you care about, get to where you are going, and to know what's next.
Cue Features:
- Turn your email, contacts and calendar into an intelligent snapshot of your day.
- Enhance your calendar by automatically connecting related emails, phone numbers, and addresses.
- Change or cancel reservations, check into flights, track the arrival of packages, or text friends that you are running late.
- See up-to-date contact info alongside recent communications and the contact's latest posts on Facebook and Twitter.
- Search across all your linked accounts.
The purchase price for Cue reportedly fell in the US$40 million to $60 million range. In an apparent confirmation of the acquisition, an Apple spokesperson relied on Cupertino's favorite boilerplate language, noting that the company "buys smaller technology companies from time to time."
The variety of accounts Cue was capable of integrating into a cohesive view was impressive. In addition to mainstays like email, Dropbox, Twitter and Facebook, the app was also able to link information from accounts as varied as Evernote, Salesforce, Reddit, Pinboard and Tumblr.
If history is any indication, Apple only acquires a company when it has a clear-cut place in Apple's product plans. To that end, one wonders how and when Apple plans to incorporate Cue's technology and features into the mix.
Some have speculated that Cue's features might nicely fit into Siri and / or the "Today" view in iOS 7's revamped Notification Center. It's worth pointing out that when 148apps reviewed the app this past July, they noted: "Cue is very intelligent. It feels like it should be baked into iOS and come preloaded on your iDevice."
Lastly, if your curiosity regarding Apple's recent acquisition has been piqued ever so slightly, check out this YouTube video featuring Cue co-founder Daniel Gross chatting with Robert Scoble about the app's features.
