GitHub for designers for Dropbox? Cloud sync-and-share company Dropbox, never one to shy away from an acquisition, has snapped up startup Pixelapse, which provides a GitHub-like version control service for “tens of thousands” of visual designers. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. “Our new development efforts will be focused on bringing the same kinds of collaboration and workflow experiences that you’re used to in Pixelapse over to the core Dropbox product,” said the company’s traditional “hey we’ve been acquired” blog post about the deal. The way Pixelapse works is simple and familiar to anyone who’s used a version control service like GitHub before: Visual design project files get stored in a dedicated folder. Make a change to a project asset, and those changes get synced to the cloud, where they’re viewable from a cloud interface. There’s even an activity feed to see who worked on what within a team. If you or anybody else (the client you’ve shared the project with, the boss in charge of the project, or just the rest of the project team) wants, they can go back and view the entire history, comparing revisions and rolling back changes if necessary. You can even show off the history of a project to the public with an embeddable code widget. If that sounds a lot like Dropbox’s existing version control, just tailored to a very specific vertical — namely, designers — collect your prize at the door. From Dropbox’s perspective, this is a shrewd move that enhances the platform’s appeal with a project management feature that developers love but designers could never access. The startup’s origins stem from co-founder Min Ming Lo’s time as a design intern at Google, where nobody had any idea what assets belonged to whom or how to give feedback. For existing users, never fear. Pixelapse promises on its website that the service is safe for at least another year and that it’s still accepting sign-ups, which is a good omen given that so many similar deals of this type see immediate service shutdown. This, as ever, plays straight into Dropbox’s endgame: More people putting more data into Dropbox’s cloud means it gets its tentacles into more and more enterprises, whether the CIO knows it or not. Pretty soon, either the user needs to buy more storage or, more likely, the CIO ends up giving Dropbox his or her blessing and makes a purchase. Either way, Dropbox gets paid. The Dropbox-Pixelapse deal comes as Box’s IPO is heating up Wall Street. Related content news analysis Apple earnings: About that iPhone 'slump' in China Based on information from Thursday's earnings report, it seems that data pointing to an iPhone slump in China were over-baked. By Jonny Evans May 03, 2024 9 mins iMac iPhone Apple news Microsoft begins to phase out ‘classic’ Teams Microsoft is encouraging Teams customers to move to the new, faster version of the collaboration app; the older version will be switched off next year. By Matthew Finnegan May 03, 2024 3 mins Microsoft Teams Collaboration Software Productivity Software news analysis Apple confirms it will open up the iPad in Europe this fall The latest efforts to comply with Europe’s Digital Markets Act mean developers can offer to side load apps to both iPhones and iPads in the EU. Apple has also taken steps to improve what it offers to smaller and non-commercial developers in the By Jonny Evans May 02, 2024 6 mins iPad Apple Mobile Apps news Udacity offers laid-off US workers free access to its courses for 30 days Sign-ups will be available over the next 30 days By Lucas Mearian May 02, 2024 4 mins Technology Industry IT Jobs IT Skills Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe