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Apple Hires Two Former Nike FuelBand Engineers, Possibly for iWatch Team

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Apr 12, 2001
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Earlier this year, Nike significantly downsized its FuelBand team, firing several members of the 80-person team that worked to create its well-known fitness tracker as part of a shift from hardware to software.

Apple snapped up two of the former FuelBand team members in June, Ryan Bailey and Jon Gale. As noted by 9to5Mac, Bailey, who served as a Senior Test and Validation Engineer at Nike is now listed as a Mechanical Design Engineer at Apple, while Gale, who was a Senior Firmware Engineer at Nike is now employed as a Sensing Systems Engineer at Apple.

nikefuelband.jpg
According to his LinkedIn profile, Bailey specialized in wearable device and consumer electronic product development, focused on providing engineering recommendations to major engineering leads. Gale, meanwhile, developed hardware and firmware architectures for Nike Digital Sport products.
Primary responsibility is to define both the hardware and firmware architectures for Nike Digital Sport products. Additionally, I managed the development of product firmware through partner companies. Responsible for delivering firmware to validate the design in a manufacturing environment, define and implementation of custom protocols to interact with other components of the Nike ecosystem, and translate high-level product requirements into actionable, testable definitions. I personally owned the delivery of firmware for the Nike FuelBand product line.
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It is unclear if Gale and Bailey have joined Apple's wearables team to work on the iWatch, but it is a distinct possibility given their expertise on wearable devices. Apple offers many positions under the job titles of Mechanical Design Engineer and Sensing Systems Engineer, however, so it is unknown exactly what the two are working on.

Over the course of the past year, Apple has hired several experts in the health and fitness fields to join its iWatch team, including fitness guru Jay Blahnik, sleep expert Roy Raymann, pulse oximetry expert and former Chief Medical Officer Michael O'Reilly, and several other scientists and executives from notable sensor companies like AccuVein, C8 MediSensors, and Senseonics. Most recently, the company took on the former sales director of luxury watch brand TAG Heuer, Patrick Pruniaux, possibly to help market the iWatch.

According to a recent report from The Wall Street Journal, Apple's upcoming wearable device will feature 10 different sensors to track various health and fitness metrics. It's said to integrate heavily with the Health app in iOS 8, and it may come in both multiple sizes and multiple designs to satisfy a wide range of tastes. Apple is expected to introduce the iWatch at an October event.

Article Link: Apple Hires Two Former Nike FuelBand Engineers, Possibly for iWatch Team
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/07/08/apple-nike-fuelband-hires/
D

dleute

macrumors newbie
Jul 12, 2008
18
0
essentials

let's hope the iWatch has wireless charging and is waterproof. both are likely deal breakers for me. Having to take out and charge *another* device will just get annoying.
 
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T

thekeyring

macrumors 68040
Jan 5, 2012
3,485
2,147
London
Sounds more and more like it will be announced this year but not released until 2015. Which is fair enough.
 
Chupa Chupa

Chupa Chupa

macrumors G5
Jul 16, 2002
14,835
7,396
Well I hope the iWatch firmware is more reliable than the Fuel Band firmware. This year alone there was a New Years time sync glitch where it repeatedly pushed a notice to the iPhone that the band and phone time was out of sync and then in the spring there was a travel zone glitch where it would add points when traveling between two or more time zones.
 
Rogifan

Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Nov 14, 2011
24,132
31,175
It's funny that Mark Gurman still claims Ben Shaffer worked on the Nike FuelBand when it was disputed by Fast Company. Shaffer worked in Nike's innovation kitchen but he worked on shoe engineering/design not the FuelBand.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3018686/why-did-apple-just-hire-a-nike-shoe-designer

Yes, Shaffer served as the Innovation Kitchen's studio director, but he and that group are centrally involved in footwear: There are knitting machines and shoe prototypes all over the lab. The Innovation Kitchen was not responsible for work on the FuelBand; Shaffer did not do work on the FuelBand, a high-level source at one of Nike's FuelBand partner firms also confirms. Rather, it was the Digital Sport group that led the development of the FuelBand--an independent group that is actually in a separate building.
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The Barron

The Barron

macrumors 6502a
Mar 5, 2009
857
1,080
Central California Coast
Apple getting its ducks in great order

Apple is very wise to get the best in very specific niche areas of technology for all of its products - near or into the future.

This is exactly why the other "wanna bes" continually chase, file meaningless law suits & have to resort to silly, "who cares?-type ads in an attempt to bash Apple.

Tim Cook et al know exactly what they're doing, so no worries. :apple:
 
V

Ventilatedbrain

macrumors regular
Nov 22, 2012
201
68
New headline

Apple hires Sasha Grey for officially becoming the biggest tease in tech.

I want and don't want a leak so bad right now !!!
 
A

aWaldo

macrumors newbie
May 31, 2014
15
11
It makes sense that all these new recruits are being hired to work on the iWatch, but if Apple are releasing the iWatch in a matter of months, it seems a bit late for any of these guys to make a serious contribution to the first iWatch release. I expect its real potential won't show until next year.
 
sputnikv

sputnikv

macrumors 6502a
Oct 3, 2009
507
3,187
dleute said:
let's hope the iWatch has wireless charging and is waterproof. both are likely deal breakers for me. Having to take out and charge *another* device will just get annoying.
Click to expand...

it's a watch, of course it'll be water resistant
 
C

cgc

macrumors 6502a
May 30, 2003
718
23
Utah
"...possibly for iWatch team." Why else would Apple hire Nike Fuel Band engineers?
 
newyorksole

newyorksole

macrumors 603
Apr 2, 2008
5,088
6,381
New York.
I can't see Apple coming out with anything this year besides 2 new iPhones, 2 new iPads and updated Macs...

Which isn't bad, but Tim keeps hyping up 2014...
 
J

Jakexb

macrumors 6502a
Mar 18, 2014
798
1,106
newyorksole said:
I can't see Apple coming out with anything this year besides 2 new iPhones, 2 new iPads and updated Macs...

Which isn't bad, but Tim keeps hyping up 2014...
Click to expand...

The hires do sound late, but there are a lot of possibilities. One could be that they've been working for Apple for awhile now and no one knew until now. Two is that they're picking up talent where they can, but not necessarily JUST for the version 1 iWatch. It's not as if they're never going to hire another person for the iWatch team even after version 1 launches. Once version 1 hardware goes to production, they're going to start working on version 2.
 
C

cdmoore74

macrumors 68020
Jun 24, 2010
2,413
711
It really does not sound like this watch/ecosystem is ready for prime time come September. If it is released in 2 months I don't think plans are super polished.
A iWatch and iPhone announcement on the same day would be stellar.
 
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