Apple Is the Latest Tech Giant Reportedly Developing Its Own Drone Fleet

Amazon has drones preparing to deliver our groceries. Google's Project Wing is preparing to deliver our groceries, too. Facebook has drones working to give us internet, and Microsoft drones are fighting Zika virus.

And now Apple has drones for giving us better maps.

According to Bloomberg sources, Apple is readying a drone fleet to improve its Maps service in a bid to catch up with mobile map megastar Google. Sources told Bloomberg that Apple will use drones to survey the Earth to update map information much faster and more accurately than its current methods, which involve a Google-like car loaded with cameras.

According to a Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) document seen by Motherboard, Apple actually applied for a drone flight exemption on September 21 2015, asking for permission to fly drones for commercial purposes. The FAA granted that exemption in March 2016, allowing Apple to “operate an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to conduct data collection, photography, and videography”. FAA commercial drone exemptions, known as 333s, are actually now defunct—replaced by the FAA’s small drone rule Part 107—but it’s still interesting to see what Apple had in mind.

Bloomberg notes that Apple has poached an Amazon Prime Air employee for the job, too, which likely wouldn’t have gone down too well in Bezos-ville, but gives insight into the competitive, cutthroat nature of the current drone wars. Sources explained how Apple will be using the drones to even map street signs, changes in road, and to keep track of construction areas. Data would then be sent back to the Apple drone HQ to be uploaded into Apple’s Maps app—which comes as standard on any iPhone.

Read more: Amazon's Delivery Drones May Face New Regulatory Roadblocks

Bloomberg’s sources had another nugget of gold, too, regarding a stealthy Apple acquisition of a startup called Indoor.io. Apple confirmed the startup was swallowed last year, but didn’t elaborate on the reasons. Indoor.io, based in Finland, specialized in mapping indoors spaces, so it’s like the team is now doing the same work from within Apple.

But whatever cartographic conniving Apple is up to, it’s still got some way to go before it beats Google. Google has in recent times consistently boasted around one billion Google Maps users—but perhaps continually updated-by-drone semi-live map interfaces from Apple could change that? It would certainly play into Apple’s self-driving car software efforts, too.

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