Traditionally, Apple purchases small companies under the radar and within a year the acquisition pays off with a new feature for the iPhone. A good example of this took place in 2012 when Apple acquired biometrics company AuthenTec for $356 million. The next year, Touch ID debuted on the iPhone 5s. Even before then, back in April 2010 Apple purchased SIRI for an undisclosed amount. The company had just listed a mobile concierge app in the App Store also called SIRI that the developers were planning to offer to Android and BlackBerry phones. Apple purchased Siri and a year later the virtual assistant launched on the iPhone 4s.

If past is prologue, expect to see some of IKinema’s technology used next year’s iPhones

A quick visit to the IKinema website reveals that it has been basically taken down although the company does have some videos posted on YouTube. One shows how the real-life movements of a person can be duplicated to move an animated character or even an animated tree. Running through some of the videos, it is obvious that Apple will be able to use IKinema’s technology to improve Animoji and Memoji. The former are animated animal emoji that track the user’s facial movements. Memoji are also animated emoji that track the user’s facial movements, but these actually are created in the image of the user. The videos also show some green screen tricks that Apple could employ when producing content for its Apple TV+ streaming video service and to create games for Apple Arcade. Apple hasn’t developed any of the games for Arcade, and as far as we know there aren’t any plans to do so. But if it does, IKinema’s technology would sure go a long way toward creating some top tier effects.