The Pebble watch is a nice hack and an unobtrusive totem of coolness, but it’s been a little hard to justify the cost. Other than displaying interesting watch faces and telling you when you’ve got emails or phone calls, the Pebble doesn’t really do much.
That looks like it will change early in 2014. Pebble has announced the opening of its appstore. The appstore will give developers a centralized (and authorized) place to distribute their programs, which will have to use version 2.0 of Pebble’s SDK.
Pebble apps will be free. However, there’s no problem with charging for companion apps on iOS or Android, and the Pebble appstore will carry links to the companion apps.
There will be seven categories of apps:
- Daily
- Remotes
- Fitness
- Tools & Utilities
- Notifications
- Games
- Watchfaces
Apps will not be screened, although the company reserves the right to yank apps that don’t conform to the developer agreement. Pebble also says that developers will not be forced to use its appstore; third-party stores will still work.