Apple takes some of its repatriated cash and goes shopping

“As we race to the close of the company’s fourth quarter, it seems pretty clear that Apple has taken some of its repatriated cash assets and done what anybody does when they receive a windfall — the company has gone shopping!” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld.
“In the last few weeks, we’ve seen/learned about: The go-ahead for Apple’s $400 million purchase of Shazam, which gives Apple access to unrivaled music taste analytics data. The $600 million Dialog Semi deal, which gives the company an edge on wireless power,” Evans writes. “Apple’s Spektral deal — this closed quietly last year. We just learned about it. Why now? Apple’s acquisition of hot music analytics startup Asaii. How Apple CEO Tim Cook recently visited another hugely hot analytics startup, Bytedance.”
Evans writes, “That’s a heap of acquisitions/potential acquisitions spanning music, entertainment, data analytics, power management (and more), and machine imaging.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Evans is right, Apple’s recent spate of acquisitions boil down to the company’s quest to improve their data analysis capabilities with a focus on personalization and to do so securely via differential privacy, unlike rivals.