What a shame for some, but I'm happy to see a Gastown company succeed. The tech hub around Victory Square is such a great little community.
Apple acquires Buddybuild
21–30 of 170 posts
Re: Apple acquires Buddybuild
#22And just like that, by dropping Android support, Buddybuild goes from viable solution to total non-starter. Does any serious mobile app development these days really go all-in on one platform?
Pretty much most larger apps/agencies do development for both platforms. iOS usually gets a bit of a higher priority, but Android is just too big to ignore.
Solutions that support both are thus more popular and better idea - but Apple obviously is using all kinds of tactics to discourage development for competing platform. Even buying companies and shutting down their Android (TestFlight is another example).
Re: Apple acquires Buddybuild
#23And just like that, by dropping Android support, Buddybuild goes from viable solution to total non-starter. Does any serious mobile app development these days really go all-in on one platform?
Pretty much most larger apps/agencies do development for both platforms. iOS usually gets a bit of a higher priority, but Android is just too big to ignore. Solutions that support both are thus more popular and better idea - but Apple obviously is using all kinds of tactics to discourage development for competing platform. Even buying companies and shutting down their Android (TestFlight is another example).
It's silly to think Apple buying Buddybuild is to discourage development for other platforms for the reason you stated, there are plenty of competitors to both TestFlight and Buddybuild. They bought these two companies because they want to enhance their own developer tools.
Re: Apple acquires Buddybuild
#242 months is not enough time for people to find alternative solutions.
I was doing marketing/growth consulting for FoundationDB when they were acquired by Apple. The product was shut down overnight. Compared to that, a two-month notice seems generous.
Re: Apple acquires Buddybuild
#25And just like that, by dropping Android support, Buddybuild goes from viable solution to total non-starter. Does any serious mobile app development these days really go all-in on one platform?
If I were to seriously attempt to commercialize the toy apps I build for my kids/family I'd go iOS first easily. People with Apple devices are far likelier to pay, and Android development is, in my view, an inferior experience (although Kotlin makes it marginally less so these days).
But would you really setup a CI process to automatically build that app? (and one that'll probably cost you at least a 100$ a month)
Re: Apple acquires Buddybuild
#262 months is not enough time for people to find alternative solutions.
I was doing marketing/growth consulting for FoundationDB when they were acquired by Apple. The product was shut down overnight. Compared to that, a two-month notice seems generous.
It's another reason to not do business with smaller companies. Especially if their idea is good, you can only wonder, when will they be bought out and my workflow will be (temporarily) disrupted?
I think Buddybuild was the only service with a free tier. For folks that aggressive bootstrappers (like myself), it's just another nuisance. And even for people who were paying -- they are still as equally as disrupted.
Re: Apple acquires Buddybuild
#27I recently posted an „Ask HN“ asking for a flexible CI system. Most of the suggestions were proprietary hosted SaaS solutions. I was sceptical, and things like that keep me sceptical. Sure, setting up a CI system yourself is maybe a bit harder than using a hosted solution. But if the provider decides to change their offering, you are in big trouble. You‘ll need to spend a lot of time switching to a new sevice, migrat…
There is Buildkite, which a hybrid server side / client side solution. This has worked extraordinarily because one of the most frustrating parts of setting up a CI service is setting up a long-lived, reliable server.
Buildkite also offers free accounts to open source projects along with awesome email support. After years of Jenkins, followed by a couple of months trying to cherry pick CI parts of GitLab and make them play nicely with GitHub, Buildkite has been a breath of fresh air. Their service has allowed us to version control pipeline configs, test GitHub pull requests, and provide all core features without having to curate a list of random plugins.
Note: I'm not affiliated with Buildkite.
Re: Apple acquires Buddybuild
#282 months is not enough time for people to find alternative solutions.
I was doing marketing/growth consulting for FoundationDB when they were acquired by Apple. The product was shut down overnight. Compared to that, a two-month notice seems generous.
Wow, from these 2 examples, Apple looks like an awful acquirer :o
Re: Apple acquires Buddybuild
#29I'm happy for the founders, this is probably a good and profitable exit for them. But as a customer I am really sad and disappointed.
Apple has a very bad reputation when it comes to taking over products like this. TestFlight is the prime example. TestFlight basically disappeared for a year until coming back as a more limited and slower Apple branded service. And by slow I mostly mean, it takes 6 months for bugs to be fixed or for exciting things to happen. Agility and innovation of a startup basically ends when Apple assimilates a service.
From the blog posting it is also not very clear what will happen to existing iOS customers. Can I upgrade my plan? Can I expect service? Will the existing infrastructure be maintained?
I'm excited about what this could mean in terms of Xcode and Xcode Server improvements. Or maybe even a hosted CI service at Apple. But that it all long term 'maybe'.
Re: Apple acquires Buddybuild
#30I recently posted an „Ask HN“ asking for a flexible CI system. Most of the suggestions were proprietary hosted SaaS solutions. I was sceptical, and things like that keep me sceptical. Sure, setting up a CI system yourself is maybe a bit harder than using a hosted solution. But if the provider decides to change their offering, you are in big trouble. You‘ll need to spend a lot of time switching to a new sevice, migrat…
I’ve been using drone, which is open source.
It’s the only CI tool I’ve found writing pipelines in to not be painful. Need a test DB? The syntax is just docker compose so you already know how to get yourself one.