Apple Preparing To Purchase Social Video And Photo Sharing Company Color Labs

Apple, Inc. is currently in talks to acquire Color Labs, a platform that focuses primarily on photo and video sharing as a social medium. Color Labs was founded by Lala founder Bill Nguyen, another company that was purchased by Apple back in 2009.

Apple has been on a buying tear lately; earlier this month, the company announced that it had purchased HTML5 operator Particle.

Color Labs has published free mobile apps for iOS and Google Play; however, recent reports suggested that Nguyen would shut down the $41 million start-up after conflicts ignited with board members.

According to The Next Web:

“Nguyen is reported to have demonstrated Color Labs technology to Apple’s Eddy Cue, but no news about the outcome of this has surfaced until now. Apple is thought to be more interested in Color Labs patents and patents pending than the smartphone application implementation of the technology. Color Labs patents include a file format for HD video as well as six patents pending on social sharing, GPS location and battery saving capabilities.”

If the purchase is successful, Apple could use Color Labs-based patents in the next iteration of the iPhone. Most useful could be the company’s video and photo sharing capabilities, which, much like Facebook and Twitter, could become deeply rooted parts of the smartphone. Apple has constantly been examining ways to steer people away from Google products, and a successful video sharing platform of its own could cut into YouTube’s mobile reach.

The multimillion dollar deal is believed to be in the “high-digits,” although specifics about the transaction have not been given.