Twitter buys Fastlane, a popular tool for building iPhone apps, and adds Android support
Matt Weinberger / Business Insider :
Context & Ripple Effects
The Fastlane deal is another piece of Twitter's 2015 build-out of its developer platform. Fabric had just gained Tweet timeline embeds and login-free API access for iOS and Android apps in April, and Twitter separately bought TenXer for under $50M to improve its internal engineering tooling — this acquisition extends that same tooling ambition outward to third-party iOS developers.
It also fits a hiring-and-buying pattern aimed at both platforms: months earlier Twitter hired Joaquim Vergés, developer of the popular Android client Falcon, and by February 2016 it shipped a Fabric mobile app with real-time alerts and analytics on iOS and Android. Adding Android support to an iPhone-first build tool right after buying it signals Fabric is meant to be cross-platform infrastructure, not an iOS side project.
First-order effects
- Fastlane's existing iPhone-app developer users now get Android support under Twitter ownership, and Twitter gains a popular open-source build pipeline to fold into Fabric alongside its April timeline and login-free API features.
Second-order effects
- Facebook's later entry with a cross-platform analytics app for businesses tracking apps, websites, and bots shows where this competition lands: platform owners bundling developer measurement and tooling to keep third-party apps inside their ecosystem.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, social platforms compete less on consumer features than on who owns the developer workflow — build tools, analytics, and APIs become the distribution layer that locks app makers into one platform's content and identity.
The trend: Social platforms are acquiring developer tooling to turn their SDKs into cross-platform infrastructure, making the build-and-analytics stack the new battleground for third-party app loyalty.