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Comment by e28eta | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised by this. To me, it makes a lot of sense that Nike, as a fitness company, produces a wearable device for exercising.

It must be a failure of my imagination, but I don't see a smart watch (in the next couple years) being both attractive to the general consumer and solving the same problems as the FuelBand does. That's partly because I can't imagine what features would make me want to buy an iWatch. So I expect that Nike's going to be forced to compromise functionality to fit the limited capabilities of general-purpose devices.

For example, Craig's proposed iRing doesn't even mention tracking motion activity: http://furbo.org/2014/03/13/wearing-apple/

Also, maybe it's the specific app I use, but using the M7 kills battery life on my 5S.

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> I'm surprised by this. To me, it makes a lot of sense that Nike, as a fitness company, produces a wearable device for exercising.

I'm not surprised -- they've been pouring money into marketing, and yet not coming within a mile of the leader (FitBit) in the activity tracker market.

> It must be a failure of my imagination, but I don't see a smart watch (in the next couple years) being both attractive to the general consumer and solving the same problems as the FuelBand does.

They aren't getting out because of the possibility of future smartwatches, they are getting out because they are getting killed by what's on the market and popular now.

I would agree, but hey Apple does have the brightest people on board to make the new iWatch both sexy for the masses and extremely useful. I was looking at either Fitbit or Misfits Wearable, both extremely well designed, and one of them is coming from te "hands" of an ex apple engineer

Does that jive with their stated plan to do software only? Does the FitBit hardware have an open API that Nike could integrate with?

Or are they stepping back and waiting for Google, Samsung, Apple, etc, to make a successful hardware device? Whether that's things like the M7 in smartphones or an extra device.

> Does the FitBit hardware have an open API that Nike could integrate with?

Yes: http://dev.fitbit.com/

I imagine the iWatch will primarily be a Fitbit/Fuelband competitor, with some extra features. Like a pulse sensor.

If anyone can make what is essentially a pedometer sexy and mass-market, it's Apple. I'll be very surprised if they come out with anything that resembles a "smart watch", save for perhaps Pebble-style notifications.

A "fitbit with extra featres" would be underwhelming. Anything that is not revolutionary on the scale of the iPod, the iPhone or the iPad would not be credible as a core Apple product - which is what Wall Street is crediting the iWatch with being. If Apple did come out with a FitBit competitor they'd be wise to avoid the "watch" moniker, perhaps going with iFit, iBand or something similar.

Note that the FitBit, FuelBand et al are mostly useless for exercising. They are daily activity trackers.

I suspect it's because competing products such as the FitBit come with the advantage of their companion apps being available on iOS and android, whereas the FuelBand is iOS only

That's probably a factor, but Nike's braindead marketing for FuelBand is probably a factor. If you look at who buys activity trackers, IME, its largely people who have trouble maintaining commitment to exercise that need something to help them, and FuelBand's advertising is a lot about how it isn't for you and will make you feel worse if you aren't already fully committed.

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