Apple is hoping to make itself a bit more of an appealing prospect to developers with the acquisition of “mobile iteration platform.”
Called Buddybuild, the Vancouver-based start-up creates app tools that are designed to help developers to continuously iterate their apps, debug them, and put them onto code hosting repositories such as GitHub, GitLab, or BitBucket.
Joining the Xcode engineering group at Apple, Buddybuild said on its website that it is no longer accepting new customers, and existing Free Starter plans and Android app development will be discontinued on the 1st of March 2018.
Xcode, Apple’s suite of development tools for its various operating systems (iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS), will likely benefit from the addition of Buddybuild, which should help developers to create and iterate their apps across Apple’s platforms.
The apps market is one of the key battlegrounds for smartphone makers, used as a revenue stream and a way to lure users to the device. The better the apps and the more exclusive they are to a particular OS, the more favourably a device will be seen.
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Apple’s already got this area of the market pretty tied up, with $11bn of $17bn generated in Q3 from apps globally (excluding China), but the iPhone maker certainly doesn’t want to rest on its laurels.
Buddybuild says on its website that it offers the ability to: “Choose to deploy your app with every build, or on a schedule that works for you and your team – no review process needed.
“For iOS developers, buddybuild can take care of all the work associated with code signing, and managing provisioning profiles for you. Beta testers and stakeholders get a streamlined, “one click” install experience as buddybuild manages provisioning profiles and devices for you.”
The Canadian company, which is said to have a team of around 40 people, will remain in Vancouver and no financial details of the acquisition have been revealed.
