Apple Eases Code Development For App Store Devs With Buddybuild Acquisition

In what will be a boost to iOS developers (and a blow to some Android devs), Apple has gone out and acquired Buddybuild, a Canadian startup that makes tools for app developers. In a couple of months, Apple will discontinue to tools for Android, making Buddybuild exclusive to iOS developers, Buddybuild said in a blog post announcing the migration to Apple. That will go into effect on March 1, 2018.

"We're excited to share that the Buddybuild team has joined the Xcode engineering group at Apple to build amazing developer tools for the entire iOS community. We've always been proud to be a Canadian company, so we're also pleased that we will be staying right here in Vancouver—a hotbed of developer and engineering talent," Buddybuild said. "The Buddybuild service will remain available to existing customers to build, test, and ship iOS apps to testers through buddybuild.com."
Some Android developers vented their frustration on Twitter, especially in light of the relative short notice. This is not the first time Apple has dealt a blow to the Android development community, either. Back in 2014, Apple acquired Burstly, which made TestFlight, a popular beta testing platform. Following the acquisition, Apple discontinued support for Android and yanked the SDK. Now that same scenario is playing out all over again.

The good news for Android developers is there are other services like Buddybuild. However, they will have to migrate rather quickly, which can be a challenge when you're in the middle of a project (or several of them). Furthermore, there is no guarantee that whichever service they switch to will not ultimately be bought up as well.

For iOS developers, Apple's acquisition should ultimately be a boon, making app development a bit easier and streamlined.