When Nike stopped developing its Fuelband wristware earlier this year, the company insisted that it wasn't abandoning wearables -- and there was plenty of speculation that Nike was merely ceding hardware development to Apple. Now Nike CEO Mark Parker has told Bloomberg TV that the companies are, indeed, hatching something. Parker's not saying what that something is, other … [Read more...]
Apple Announces Watch SDK for November
If you want people to develop for your hardware, you'd better have an SDK. Buried inside today's announcements from Apple was word that the company will publish its WatchKit SDK for developers next month. There's still no definite word about a ship date for the Watch, other than "Early 2015." But by inviting the masses for develop for it, Apple is allowing outsiders to beat … [Read more...]
Apple to Fitbit: “… And The Horse You Rode In On”
If Fitbit wanted to keep the Apple Store as a distribution channel, maybe it shouldn't have dissed HealthKit quite so hard. ReCode is reporting that the public anti-HealthKit stance will cost Fitbit its place in Apple Stores. We don't know how many units Fitbit sells through Apple, but we doubt it's a big number; BestBuy is probably far more important from a revenue … [Read more...]
Fitbit Doesn’t Plan to Play with Apple HealthKit
Fitbit is the world leader in fitness trackers, and does not appear to be especially interested in being part of the Apple HealthKit ecosystem. As our sister publication Health Tech Insider writes, Fitbit posted yesterday on its support forum that there are no plans to integrate with HealthKit. That's another piece of not-so-great news for Apple, which has had a rocky start … [Read more...]
Apple iPhone Event Sept. 9; Maybe iWatch, Too?
This much is known: Apple is holding a news conference September 9 to talk about iPhones. This much is not known: pretty much everything else. That's not quite true. We know that the event will be the public unveiling of iOS8, if you don't count the developer versions and the public beta. But the size of the phones, and processor they're based on (most likely the A8) and … [Read more...]
Apple iTime Patent Hints at What Might Be Coming
The Apple iWatch (or whatever it's going to be called) may well be a wristband with sensors and a radio in it, and an insertable (and presumably replaceable) display module that gets snapped in to be the device's face. That's what you'd gather from US Patent 8,787,006, which AppleInsider spotted today. The specific claims are interesting. Several of them relate directly to … [Read more...]
Tag Heuer Exec Bolts to Apple
If you want to bury news, the morning of July 4 three-day weekend holiday is pretty much perfect, and that's when the head of watchmaker Tag Heuer dropped word on CBNC that its sales director has headed off to Apple. Patrick Pruniaux, VP of Sales and Retail for the Swiss luxury watchmaker Tag Heuer, has quit and gone to Apple, said Jean-Claude Biver, head of watch brands at … [Read more...]
“Details” Emerging About Apple iWatch
Reuters and the Wall Street Journal are both reporting this morning that Apple's much-expected iWatch health monitor is about to enter production in anticipation of an announcement "as early as October." This certainly would fit with Apple's normal product cycle and would be in time for holiday shopping. Both outlets say that the device will be built by Quanta, in Taiwan. … [Read more...]
Forbes: Google Is Set to Dive Into the Health Data Market
Forbes has "multiple sources with knowledge of the company's plans" who say that Google will soon a health data aggregation service called Google Fit. Supposedly slated to launch later this month at the Google I/O conference, Google Fit is apparently a set of APIs that will link equipment like fitness trackers through the Google cloud. If it's as described, Google Fit would … [Read more...]
October for the iWatch?
Recode is citing "people familiar with Apple's plans" as saying that the Cupertino giant will announce and ship its wearable product in October. Moreover, it links to someone else's report that they expect to sell 3 million to 5 million of them a month. Do note that the report appears in Recode's "CodeRed" feature, which is its dumping ground for items that don't merit … [Read more...]