Google has bought Fabric, Twitter's developer platform, to add it to its Developer Products division alongside Firebase. 

The plan is that Fabric will merge with the Firebase development platform, according to an announcement by the Fabric team on the Fabric blog. Explaining that the team will join the Google Developer Products Group, working with the Firebase team, the Fabric developers said:

"When we met the team at Google we quickly realized that our missions are the same - helping mobile teams build better apps, understand their users, and grow their businesses. Fabric and Firebase operate mobile platforms with unique strengths in the market today. We’re excited to combine these platforms together to make the best mobile developer platform in the world for app teams."

Fabric includes tools for creating mobile apps such as Crashlytics for reporting crashes, Digits for authenticating users, Answers for application analytics and Fastlane for testing and updating iPhone and Android apps. It was acquired by Twitter back in 2014 to give developers the tools to work with Twitter data in their apps, such as embedding tweets in apps or signing in using Twitter credentials.

Google Firebase was expanded in 2016 to give developers better tools for creating apps across iOS, Android and the Web that incorporate Google technology from Cloud to mobile advertising. Improvements have recently been made to features including Firebase Analytics, Test Lab and Cloud Messaging, as well as added support for game developers with a C++ SDK and Unity plug-in.

Writing about the acquisition on the Google Developers Blog, Francis Ma, Firebase Product Manager, said:

"As a popular, trusted tool over many years, we expect that Crashlytics will become the main crash reporting offering for Firebase and will augment the work that we have already done in this area. While Fabric was built on the foundation of Crashlytics, the Fabric team leveraged its success to launch a broad set of important tools, including Answers and Fastlane."

During the transition period while the two groups are being amalgamated, Digits, the SMS authentication services, will be maintained by Twitter.

More Information

Google Firebase

Fabric - Official Site 

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