Apple Partners with GE to Work on Industrial Apps for iOS

On Tuesday Apple announced that it would partner with General Electric Co. to “deliver powerful industrial apps designed to bring predictive data and analytics from Predix, GE’s industrial Internet of Things (IoT) platform, to iPhone and iPad”. The two giants together disclosed a new Predix software development kit (SDK) for iOS, which provides iOS developers tools to make their own industrial IoT apps.

The SDK has been available to download since Thursday. iOS developers can take advantage of this toolkit to make mobile apps for managing machinery, factories and power plants. Predix becomes Apple’s preferred tool for joint factories, and it says the industrial apps will “give industrial operators more insight and visibility into the performance of their equipment and operations right from their iPhone or iPad”.

GE offers the Predix data-collection and analysis tool to help developers build mobile apps targeted to business customers. “Our customers increasingly need to arm their workforces through mobility. Working together, GE and Apple are giving industrial companies access to powerful apps that help them tap into the predictive data and analytics of Predix right on their iPhone or iPad,”said John Flannery, CEO of GE.

GE is also developing apps for internal use and its customers. Its Asset Performance Management (APM) Cases app, which is built on Predix and available in the App Store, helps industrial users monitor industrial equipment on an iOS device.

GE will deploy iPhones and iPads as standard mobile devices across the organization and promote Mac as an option for its global workforce. In return, Apple will promote GE’s Predix as the industrial IoT analytics platform to its customers and developers.

“Together, Apple and GE are fundamentally changing how the industrial world works by combining GE’s Predix platform with the power and simplicity of iPhone and iPad,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. The iPhone maker has cooperated with several big companies to develop iOS apps, including IBM, Cisco, Deloitte and SAP.