Apple Inc. is teaming up with customer relationship management software company Salesforce.com Inc. in order to improve the number and quality of mobile business applications available on its iPhone and iPad devices.

The companies said in an announcement today that their partnership would focus on three areas, each pertaining to developers and Apple’s iOS operating system.

The most important announcement is that Salesforce will redesign its primary mobile application so it can integrate specific iOS functions such as Business Chat, Face ID and Siri Shortcuts. The companies will also introduce a new Trailhead Mobile App, which teaches people how to use Salesforce software, for iOS devices.

Both apps are set to appear in 2019, with the redesigned Salesforce mobile app coming ahead of the Trailhead app.

Apple and Salesforce will also jointly create a new Salesforce Mobile software development kit that they say will be optimized for Swift, the main programming language in Apple’s ecosystem. The idea is that developers can use this to build and deploy applications on Salesforce’s Lightning Platform for iPhone and iPad users. The companies say the SDK should be out before the end of this year.

Lastly, Apple said it’s finished building a “Get Started with iOS App Development” Trail for developers to learn how to build native iOS apps in Xcode with Swift. That app is available now.

Starting today, Salesforce and @Apple are coming together to give developers new tools and empower everyone to learn how to build native iOS apps through Trailhead, our free, online learning platform. This is just the beginning! https://t.co/ZCToVpQIIt pic.twitter.com/tOzk8HAjYP

— Salesforce (@salesforce) September 24, 2018

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has over the last few years forged a number of partnerships with enterprise technology firms, including the likes of Accenture Plc, Cisco Systems Inc., IBM Corp. and SAP SE as he looks to boost his company’s relevance with business users. Just as with Salesforce, each of these partnerships have been about bringing native iOS features to their business apps.

Apple users may have plenty to cheer about with the partnership, but those who rely Android may be feeling left out, said Holger Mueller, principal analyst and vice president of Constellation Research Inc.

“Let’s not forget that the worldwide market leader for mobile OS is Android, so many CxOs at mixed used enterprises could start feeling some headaches,” Mueller said. “The winner is Apple’s and Salesforce’s users on iOS. The most likely users are developers that can build cross-platforms apps with Salesforce’s lightweight platform-as-a-service suite around Lightning.”

Image: Apple/Salesforce