While the world continues to wait for Apple to buy an enormous and powerful company with its stockpile of cash, the tech giant just keeps quietly snapping up smaller ones instead. The latest: BroadMap and Catch, two completely different tech companies that focused on mapping technologies and productivity, respectively. BroadMap is a geographic information systems-maker with products aimed at both enterprise companies and small to medium sized businesses. Catch was a company with a multi-platform note-taking app that mysteriously shut down just four months ago. News that the pair were acquired by Apple came from 9to5Mac today, which pointed to changes in job listings by a handful of employees on LinkedIn. All Things D later got confirmation from Apple that it, in fact, bought both.

The latest in a series of quiet purchases

The two companies add to a growing list of businesses Apple's picked up during 2013 — acquisitions that have come without any official announcements, but that could strengthen the company's existing products and services. On just the maps side, that list includes Locationary, local-navigation company Hopstop, and transit app-maker Embark. All those are expected to help bolster Apple's mapping service, which had a disastrous roll out last year. There's also Oakland-based Passif Semiconductor, video guide and social recommendation service Matcha.TV, and 3D-sensing company PrimeSense, the last of which Apple snapped up as part of a reported $360 million deal.