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Apple teams up with Salesforce to make business apps better for iPhone and iPad

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  Apple and Salesforce have entered into a strategic partnership which will see the two firms work together on building enterprise apps that utilise more of Apple's best mobile features, such as Siri.

Salesforce will redesign its own app as part of the deal, to debut in early 2019, as well as provide new tools to developers that use Salesforce's platform to create business apps around the world.

“We’re excited to work with Salesforce and that their industry-leading customer relationship management (CRM) will embrace native iOS and deliver exclusive new features on iPhone and iPad,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive.

Support for Apple features such as Face ID, Business Chat and the new voice assistant shortcuts debuted in iOS 12 this month will be built into Salesforce's developer kit, which in turn will help businesses on Salesforce's platform to make their own apps with these features included.

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“With this partnership, we’re bringing together the world’s number one CRM platform with iPhone and iPad, the world’s best devices for business,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and co-chief executive, Salesforce

Around 5m developers currently use Salesforce's Lightning platform, while approximately 20m are making apps for Apple devices around the world, according to Reuters.

The developer toolkit is expected to launch by the end of 2018.