Apple secretly buys Coherent Navigation -- iOS Maps to get iGPS?

Apple made another mapping acquisition. This time, it's a little company called Coherent Navigation.

It has an interesting technology that integrates GPS signals with other references -- to greatly increase the accuracy of positioning data. In other words, a future iPhone could know where you are to the nearest inch or so.

In IT Blogwatch, bloggers get lost. Not to mention: How Apple has already improved Maps…

Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment.

Eric Slivka broke the story:

Apple appears to have acquired Coherent Navigation, a Bay Area GPS-related firm founded in 2008 by engineers from Stanford and Cornell. 
…[It focused on] High Integrity GPS ("iGPS"), a system that combines signals from the traditional mid-earth orbit GPS satellites with those from the low-earth satellites of...Iridium to offer greater accuracy and precision...greater jam resistance...accurate to within centimeters. 
…Coherent Navigation would be just the latest in a long string of mapping-related acquisitions Apple has made over the last several years...since a rough transition away from Google Maps...in 2012.  MORE

Mike Isaac confirmed the story:

Apple [has] purchased Coherent Navigation, a Bay Area global positioning company. [It] was a small firm that focused on creating commercial navigation services. 
…[It] worked on high-precision navigation systems [better than] consumer-grade global positioning systems...accurate to within three to five meters. 
…Terms of Apple’s acquisition of Coherent Navigation were not disclosed.  MORE

And Sarah Buhr contextualizes the story:

Apple’s Maps...still lags behind Google Maps. Nearly twice as many iPhone owners prefer to get directions and look up addresses on the Google version...according to recent ComScore numbers. 
…Apple has not divulged when it bought Coherent Navigation, or for how much, but...Paul G. Lego, Coherent Navigation’s CEO [has] been working for Apple for the last 5 months.  MORE