Ondrej Holzman Anyone who has ever been serious about full-fledged work on an iPad has probably used one the Workflow application. This hugely popular automation tool allowed you to connect different apps and actions together, allowing you to do a lot of things on iOS that previously required a Mac. Now this application, including the entire development team, has been bought by Apple.
The news was unexpected on Wednesday evening, however, Matthew Panzarino from TechCrunch, who came with her first, he revealed, that he had been monitoring this acquisition for a long time. Now the two parties have finally reached an agreement, but the amount for which Apple bought Workflow is not known.
In a few years, the Workflow application developed into an indispensable tool for all so-called power users who needed to perform more complex operations on iPhones or iPads. You always prepared them in Workflow as a combination of different scripts or preset actions, and then, if necessary, you called them up by pressing a single button. Automator, which is developed by Apple itself, works very similarly on the Mac.
The developers of the Californian company will also get access to a similar application on iOS, while a team of several people who have worked on Workflow should join them. What is rather surprising, but pleasant for application users, is the discovery that Apple will keep Workflow in the App Store for the time being, and will also offer it for free. Due to legal issues, however, it immediately removed support for applications such as Google Chrome, Pocket or Telegram, which had previously refused to sign consent to use their URL schemes.
"We are thrilled to be joining Apple," commented team member Ari Weinstein on the acquisition. "We have worked closely with Apple from the very beginning. (…) He can't wait to take our work to the next level at Apple and contribute to products that touch people around the world." In 2015, Workflow received a design award from Apple, and the company was already very fond of the whole initiative.
As already mentioned, Workflow remains in the App Store, at least for the time being, as it is not just the acquisition of the team, but the entire application. However, the entire iOS scene will be impatiently watching in the coming months how Apple will eventually deal with Workflow - many expect sooner or later the end of a separate application and the gradual integration of its functions into iOS. However, Apple has traditionally not revealed its plans. We could see the first swallows in June at the WWDC developer conference, which is about these matters.
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Mainly, it could bring Workflow support to Siri, which would be great, because it really lacks a lot...
And what do you use it for? I tried to automate something (I have about 2 manual things that I do every day). I just found that the application that I want to run at least does not support Workflow and cau and hello. So only all Apple applications are supported.