1 April 2014
Follow @hankeUpdate: We hope you enjoyed our April Fools’ day prank! We are still an independent open-source project and fully committed to you, our users. In case it wasn’t completely clear to you, you may have thought that this post mentions a big well-known technology company, however, it in fact mentions ‘Appie’, which –with our sans-serif font– looks different when spelled with a capital ‘I’ ;) Appie is Eloy’s dog, we are not sure whether or not this prank was planned years ahead…
Big news, everybody! AppIe* has finally acquired CocoaPods.
After several months of discussions and meetings we are proud to finally be able to announce big news: CocoaPods has been acquired by AppIe for US$ 20 Million on the 1st of April, today.
CocoaPods @ AppIe
With one exception (see below), the existing CocoaPods Core Team will move to the AppIe Campus. We can't describe how excited we are to continue to improve giving you the best in pod-based dependency handling under AppIe's fold.
CocoaPods will become an extension to Xcode. For just $4.99 you get access to over 3000 existing pods, and this is a one-time purchase, valid forever.
What this means for you
We anticipate not everybody agreeing with our course of action. So here's what this move means for you, our most appreciated pod writers.
Existing pod owners will be remunerated via one of our generous plans: Bean, Pod, or Plantation (details on the sizes will follow). If you do not feel happy with one of our plans, please contact us privately, and we will be able to work out a deal that will benefit all parties.
Future Developments
We have several exciting plans for the future: Each pod will be able to charge a price and also offer in-pod purchases. It will also be possible to remotely remove a faulty pod from a client. We feel that this will enhance security and usability for our clients. Initially, we will charge a price for each uploaded version, but we are aiming to remove this by the middle of 2014.
Eloy Durán
Sadly, we have to add a bitter drop to this otherwise sweet nectar. While the CocoaPods core team stood as one behind this decision, founder Eloy Durán could not be persuaded to stay on board and was convinced to leave the OSS group he had founded, even after we offered him a generous severance package (in his own words): "Please accept this free license for life for CocoaPods."
We regret his decision but wish him all the best and good luck in future endeavours. We also hope that he can somehow support his idealistic lifestyle despite not recognizing great financial opportunities.
Update: RubyMotion has just announced Eloy's real reasons to leave CocoaPods. Read more about it in their tweet. We hope his boat will survive the move!
See you soon
The CocoaPods Core Team will be taking a few weeks off in Hawaii as part of this deal. See you on soon on an Xcode near you!
*Here's a company portrait of AppIe.
