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Apple acquires app testing and advertising company Burstly

The latest target of Apple's recently-busy mergers and acquisitions staff is Silicon Beach company Burstly, a deal that could bolster both the iAd platform and the Xcode development suite.

Santa Monica, Calif.-based Burstly says they provide "solutions for the app lifecycle," supporting developers with app testing platform TestFlight and in-app ad management tool SkyRocket. News of the acquisition was first reported by TechCrunch.

Apple confirmed the deal to Re/code with the now-standard statement that "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

Burstly has taken a number of steps to tighten its offerings in recent weeks, terminating TestFlight's Android support and deprecating access to its software development kit. Those actions now look to have been the result of the Apple agreement.

No financial terms were disclosed, and it is unclear whether Apple is interested in Burstly's technology, team, or both. So-called "acquihires," in which larger tech companies buy startups simply to assimilate their employees, have become increasingly common as competition for engineering and design talent heats up.

This is Apple's second known acquisition this year after the company bought photography app developer SnappyLabs early in January.