Automattic Acquires Simplenote Creator Simperium

As reported by AllThingsD, Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and other products, has acquired Simperium, creators of popular note-taking app Simplenote.

This isn’t one of those talent acquisitions where the products aren’t part of the equation; Automattic expects to continue and extend work on both Simperium and Simplenote. “Simperium seems like a genuiune utility for our own apps and for other people as a service,” said Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg yesterday. “And Simplenote as a product I love and it’s just darn handy.”

According to Simperium, they will keep expanding their platform as a “tool for building apps”. They have already open-sourced the iOS and JavaScript components of their code, but it doesn’t look like the existing Simplenote apps will be going away any time soon. In a different blog post, the Simplenote developers explain how Automattic will help them “supercharge” Simplenote and bring it to more platforms:

You know how sometimes, the services you love just disappear when they’re bought by someone else? Or they wither and die a slow and painful death? Not the case here. We made sure of that.

Simplenote is one of the most popular third-party note-taking apps for iOS, with native clients for the iPhone and iPad that sync to a variety of desktop and web clients. On the other hand, Automattic has been criticized on several occasions for features lacking in its WordPress client for iOS, and it appears the Simperium acquisition will enable them to bring more intelligent and reliable sync to the app, though it’s unclear how and when.

You can read the details of the acquisition and transition to Automattic in the blog posts linked above. If you’re looking for Simplenote alternatives, Shawn Blanc recently shared his thoughts on the best note-taking apps for iOS and OS X. You can find our past coverage of Simplenote (including reviews of the apps) here.