Apple Acquires Buddybuild to Improve App Development Tools

Sean Michael

Updated · Jan 05, 2018

Apple started off 2018 by acquiring privately held app tools startup Buddybuild on Jan. 4.

Buddybuild is a Vancouver, Canada-based mobile app tools startup that was founded in 2015 and had raised approximately $8.8 million to date. Financial terms of the Apple acquisition have not been publicly disclosed.

“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,” Buddybuild stated.

Xcode is Apple's primary development tool, used for both desktop and mobile applications. The Buddybuild service is all about helping to improve developer productivity with automation for parts of the mobile development pipeline.

“By focusing on solving the unique needs of the mobile development process, Buddybuild makes it possible for developers to spend less time on non-feature related tasks and more time focused on building apps that users love,” the company's website states.

Buddybuild had a range of service tiers, with a free starter plan at the entry level and going up to the Business Plus plan, which cost $1,037 a month. Under Apple's ownership, Buddybuild is no longer accepting new customers.

Additionally, Buddybuild said that service for existing free starter plan customers as well as Android application development services will be discontinued on March 1, 2018.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at EnterpriseAppsToday and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

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    Sean Michael

    Sean Michael is a writer who focuses on innovation and how science and technology intersect with industry, technology Wordpress, VMware Salesforce, And Application tech. TechCrunch Europas shortlisted her for the best tech journalist award. She enjoys finding stories that open people's eyes. She graduated from the University of California.

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