Apple acquires Canadian app development service Buddybuild

Apple has acquired a Canadian software startup named Buddybuild to entice app developers. While Buddybuild has confirmed the news on its official blog, the iPhone maker is yet to release a statement on this regard.

As reported by TechCrunch, this acquisition will help the developers to easily create apps for Apple's platforms. Buddybuild is an app tools startup, which describes itself as "mobile iteration platform". Essentially, the company is "focused on continuous integration and debugging tools" to provide support to app developers, notes the report. The publication further says Apple has confirmed the deal as well.

However, the company didn't disclose any financial terms. Even after the acquisition, the Buddybuild team, which currently has around 40 employees, will stay put in BC in Canada.

Under the acquisition, Buddybuild will be integrated into Xcode, which is Apple's suite of development tools for iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS. That being said neither Apple nor Buddybuild has given any specific timeline of when will that happen.

While Buddybuild will continue to serve its existing customers as a standalone product through its website, it won't accept new customers through that portal, coming into effect from today. It should also be noted that the startup will working on the Android app development that it had started last February. The service will shut down in coming March.

The acquisition means, Buddybuild will bring additional tools for testing, debugging and employing mobile apps through a proprietary channel. Furthermore, it is expected to make developing and iterating apps for iOS platforms much easier.

Buddybuild was founded back in 2015 by two former Amazon employees named Dennis Pilarinos and Christopher Stott. Within three years since its birth, the startup has managed to make a profit of around $8.8 million.

Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of the photo sharing website Flickr and workspace messaging app Slack, has served as an adviser for Buddybuild. Naturally, Slack has become one of the company's notable clients. Some of the other clients include Mozilla, Hootsuite, Reddit, SoundCloud, FourSquare and The New York Times.

So it is pretty apparent that Apple did its research before deciding to buy Buddybuild. Hopefully, Apple's Xcode will grow with this new acquisition.