Apple acquires Canada-based app development service buddybuild

Apple has acquired Canadian start-up buddybuild, a mobile iteration platform focused on building integration and debugging tools for iOS developers, for an undisclosed sum.

The acquisition is expected to boost Apple's efforts to ramp up its app ecosystem and developer community. buddybuild is very popular among the developers including both iOS and Android. The move, however, will restrict buddybuild to provide services only to the iOS community.

The startup announced that it will end Android app development from 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," buddybuild said in a blog post on Wednesday.

The company said that it would stay in Vancouver -- a hotbed of developer and engineering talent.

"The buddybuild service will remain available to existing customers to build, test and ship iOS apps to testers through buddybuild.com," it added.

The startup is no longer accepting new customers. "Existing 'Free Starter' plans and Android app development will be discontinued on March 1, 2018," the company said.

buddybuild would be rolled into Xcode, Apple's suite of development tools for iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS, reports TechCrunch.

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.