A German company run by a single developer has been acquired by Apple, providing it with color grading and management software that could end up in Final Cut Pro or Pixelmator Pro.
The fact remains that Apple’s biggest acquisition ever was Beats for $3 billion and the acquisition of Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. While the figures for Apple’s latest purchase are unlikely to be revealed, it should surely be one of the least the company has ever paid.
Indeed, as confirmed by European Union lists, Apple acquired the German company Patchflyer and its only employee. According to German business documents, this employee is managing director Jonathan Marvin Ochmann.
Ochmann’s Patchflyer creates Color.io, an app the EU describes as “a web application for color management and calibration of digital imagery.”
Patchflyer’s own website goes further and states that it is in the business of “developing proprietary tools for color science, spatial measurements, acoustic modeling, and a number of tools and scripting libraries providing a unique approach to complex virtual instruments.”
This is just a guess as to what Apple might have in mind for Patchflyer, but color grading is an important part of video editing and, to a lesser extent, image editing as well. It is therefore possible that Apple will once again acquire technology to add functionality to the applications in its Apple Creator Studio offering.
Typically, when Apple acquires a company, its website is shut down or certain elements are removed. In the case of Patchflyer, even though the company has been around for 11 years, there is virtually nothing to remove.
The Patchflyer website is a basic WordPress site that doesn’t even have its own unique domain name. Of its three sections, two may have been removed by Apple because they now end in 404 errors. The third appears to be related to a separate company.
When this happened
It is likely that Apple actually acquired Patchflyer around October 2025. The new details come from how Apple and other companies are mandated by the EU to provide details of acquisitions that can be considered material.
However, the EU only updates its database periodically and also states that the information will not be published less than four months after it is filed. This would suggest that Patchflyer was purchased in early 2026, except that the EU listing also just added Apple’s acquisition of Prompt AI.
This San Francisco company was acquired in October 2025. It is described as a computer vision startup and is believed to have been acquired by Apple to help with Apple Intelligence and HomeKit Secure Video.