Sen. Josh Hawley introduced a bill Monday that would ban mergers and acquisitions by companies with market caps in excess of $100 billion. If passed, the bill could have a massive impact on technology companies, including Apple.
Apple, for the record, currently has a market cap of $2.2 trillion. Other tech giants worth upward of $100 billion include Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, Uber, Airbnb and Netflix.
Apple reportedly bought more companies developing artificial intelligence technology over the past five years than anyone else. A prime goal is to make the Siri voice assistant smarter, according to GlobalData, the market-research firm that compiled a list of AI-related acquisitions by many companies.
Mobeewave helps handsets act like little cash registers. Apple reportedly purchased this company, which could lead to iPhones able to easily receive money from credit cards with just a tap.
Apple purchased Inductiv, a Canadian company that focused on using artificial intelligence to clean up data. They created HoloClean, which was designed to get useful predictions from “noisy, incomplete, and erroneous data.”
The employees of Inductiv joined the team developing Siri, Apple’s voice-driven AI assistant, according to Bloomberg.
Apple acquired a startup that provides virtual-reality experiences for watching live events. The purchase of NextVR could lead to Apple building more VR capabilities into its products.
Everything on Apple TV+ today was released in the past few months. But Apple is reportedly in talks to buy MGM, which would bring a catalogue of classic and modern movies to the iPhone maker’s streaming video service.
Apple purchased Xnor.ai, a company that creates artificial intelligence software for mobile devices. The acquisition will apparently lead to AI applications running directly on iPhones, iPads, etc., not outsourced to the cloud. This should make these tasks more private and quicker.
The $1 billion Apple spent on Intel’s modem business is the second-largest acquisition in the company’s 42-year history.
Still, while a huge amount of money by most normal standards, rival tech giants regularly dwarf Apple’s big spend on Intel. For a variety of reasons, Apple just doesn’t roll that way.
Apple bought a small startup that created an app that used machine learning to auotomically find news articles users would be interested in.
The acquisition of Laserlike is expected to bolster Apple’s artificial intelligence efforts.
The best way for Apple’s upcoming streaming video service to compete against already established competitors like Netflix is to buy a movie studio, according to an industry analyst.
Apple is reportedly going to introduce its video service in the first half of this year, and the analyst recommends buying Sony Pictures, Lionsgate or another studio to increase its offerings.
