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Apple Acquires Canadian App Development Startup Buddybuild

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Apr 12, 2001
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Apple recently purchased Vancouver-based app startup Buddybuild, according to a blog post on the Buddybuild website (via iMore).

Buddybuild's website describes the company as a "continuous integration, continuous deployment, and user feedback platform for development teams." In other words, Buddybuild offers tools for developers that are designed to let them quickly and easily build apps through GitHub, BitBucket, or GitLab.

buddybuildapple-800x347.jpg

The entire Buddybuild team will be joining the Xcode engineering group at Apple to "build amazing developer tools for the entire iOS community," with Buddybuild being rolled into Xcode itself.

Buddybuild will continue to operate out of Vancouver, Canada, and the Buddybuild service will remain available to existing customers for building, testing, and shipping iOS apps.
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.
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Though the service will remain available for current customers, the company is no longer accepting new customers. Current free starter plans and Android app development tools will be discontinued on March 1, 2018 following the acquisition.

Article Link: Apple Acquires Canadian App Development Startup Buddybuild
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/02/apple-acquires-buddybuild-for-xcode-team/
Could this be related to the threat of shutdown to other generic app builders? Is Apple planning to create their own app authoring system for individuals or companies that want a cheap, simple, turnkey solution?
 
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Ooh! One of the reasons I hated beta testing Timehop was their insistence on using buddybuild instead of TestFlight. Best!
 
How about integrating XCode with Diawi so one doesn't have to archive->export->upload every single time?
 
diego said:
Why not? Contrary to popular belief, many tech workers don't want to move to California. There are so many examples of companies leaving offices and expanding their presence in Canada because of this. Google and Fitbit come to mind.
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You think Apple cares? Like the way they care for industry standards (USB-C?)? Forget it. That team will be gone from Vancouver in a year or so.
 
diego said:
Why not? Contrary to popular belief, many tech workers don't want to move to California. There are so many examples of companies leaving offices and expanding their presence in Canada because of this. Google and Fitbit come to mind.
Click to expand...
Everybody wants to move to freaking Austin.... this place sucks.
 
It's financially advantageous for US companies to operate branches in Canada. More cost-effective, and if you keep your workers happy, you'll get good return on your dollar. It may have been part of the negotiations that Buildbuddy remain in Vancouver, for a few years at least.
 
Might this be part of a larger move to an OS-agnostic app development suite? As in Apple no longer feeling the need to support those nasty old macOS and computer nerds because apps can be developed on Windows and Linux???
 
RE: "Buddybuild offers tools for developers that are designed to let them quickly and easily build apps through GitHub, BitBucket, or GitLab."

Looks to be a VERY DUMB move on Apple's part ... another one they didn't think thru.

Simple apps will now be REPLICATED in the tens of thousands, instead of 100s or 1000s.

It will swamp their App Review teams, and clutter-up the iOS App Store even more so than it already is, which is basically just one BIG ****ing Mess !

My guess, Phil Schiller made the call on this one.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Cosmosent said:
RE: "Buddybuild offers tools for developers that are designed to let them quickly and easily build apps through GitHub, BitBucket, or GitLab."

Looks to be a VERY DUMB move on Apple's part ... another one they didn't think thru.

Simple apps will now be REPLICATED in the tens of thousands, instead of 100s or 1000s.

It will swamp their App Review teams, and clutter-up the iOS App Store even more so than it already is, which is basically just one BIG F!@#ing Mess !

My guess, Phil Schiller made the call on this one.
Click to expand...
....I don't think you know how Buddybuild works.
 
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wigby said:
Could this be related to the threat of shutdown to other generic app builders? Is Apple planning to create their own app authoring system for individuals or companies that want a cheap, simple, turnkey solution?
Click to expand...

Apple isn't shutting down generic app builders, they will require apps built through a system like that to be submitted on developer accounts for each company though rather than all through a single developers account.

Also BuildBuddy is not some sort of template app creator, rather it's a Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI / CD) system that helps automate building and distributing development builds.

Xcode 9 has some CI features via its Xcode Server component and I expect Xcode 10 to have an expanded feature set now that Apple has acquired this company.
 
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diego said:
Nice to hear that they will be staying in Vancouver!
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Probably the best purchase Apple ha made in 12 months!

OldSchoolMacGuy said:
Good deal. Should be interesting to see what they do with it.
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Their going to get feedback from all Apple users that they cannot ignore and will make great products and services that will not be shipped as crap!

Honestly though this could have great integration with their first party apps and web front services.
 
wigby said:
Could this be related to the threat of shutdown to other generic app builders? Is Apple planning to create their own app authoring system for individuals or companies that want a cheap, simple, turnkey solution?
Click to expand...

No. This is tooling to make engineering easier.

Cosmosent said:
RE: "Buddybuild offers tools for developers that are designed to let them quickly and easily build apps through GitHub, BitBucket, or GitLab."

Looks to be a VERY DUMB move on Apple's part ... another one they didn't think thru.

Simple apps will now be REPLICATED in the tens of thousands, instead of 100s or 1000s.

It will swamp their App Review teams, and clutter-up the iOS App Store even more so than it already is, which is basically just one BIG F!@#ing Mess !

My guess, Phil Schiller made the call on this one.
Click to expand...

My guess, you neither know much about Phil Schiller, who is quite competent, nor this company, whom the article described (consider reading it), nor software engineering.

AppleMad98004 said:
I don't think they will be there in a year or so. Apple just doesn't want employees to jump ship immediately. Give them time to plan the move to the space ship.
Click to expand...

Why? Apple has several Software teams outside Cupertino. iWork in Pittsburgh, for instance
 
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That's the 2018 race; buy the best CI/CD group, integrate it into your tools, profit. #underweargnomes
[doublepost=1514956667][/doublepost]Up next, GitKraken...
 
diego said:
Why not? Contrary to popular belief, many tech workers don't want to move to California. There are so many examples of companies leaving offices and expanding their presence in Canada because of this. Google and Fitbit come to mind.
Click to expand...

And Vancouver is on the same timezone as SF, so managing a remote team is not really inconvenient.
They have people working from the EU and an R&D office in Israel so why not Canada?
 
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