Apple recently purchased Vancouver-based app startup Buddybuild, according to a blog post on the Buddybuild website
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.
No financial terms have been disclosed for the deal. Apple tells TechCrunch that the team (currently employing around 40 or so engineers) will stay put in BC, a fact that the startup celebrated by noting that it’s “always been proud to be a Canadian company.”
“Existing ‘Free Starter’ plans and Android app development will be discontinued on March 1, 2018,” the company said. According to TechCrunch, Buddybuild would be rolled into Xcode, Apple’s suite of development tools for iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS. Apple still generates significant revenue from apps.
“Of the $17 billion generated in Q3 from apps globally (excluding China), Apple accounted for around $11 billion of it, according to App Annie,” the report added. Buddybuild was founded in 2015 by former Amazon employees Dennis Pilarinos and Christopher Stott. In 2014, Apple acquired TestFlight which began to require users to employ Xcode to utilise the service.
With Google racing ahead of Apple in app downloads, it’s only apparent to assume why Apple is hell-bent on making sure its platform and app tools remain developer-friendly. According to App Annie, of the $17 billion revenue generated globally in Q3 from apps (excluding China), Apple accounted for around $11 billion of it.