Apple to Cease Selling Fitbit Activity Tracking Devices in Stores

[TallManNY]

Sleep tracking is one of the main things that attracts me to Fitbit.

The Apple watch won't be able to track sleep, since that's when they expect people to charge it every night.

Honestly, as odd as it sounds, that's one of the main marks against the Aple Watch in my brain right now.

Also while Apple Watch tracks steps, I won't want to use it during contact sports. A big part of my steps each week is playing basketball. I can't wear a metal watch during a basketball game (literally any jewelry is against the rules and other players would rightfully be concerned about being scrapped and cut by the watch).

I like the fitibit and suspect I will keep using it even if in the distant future I get an Apple Watch.

 

[Rigby]

The world is full of "proprietary" standards. Code your game to DirectX? Proprietary. Write using C#? Proprietary (good enough). Use Android APIs? Proprietary.

I was referring to your example of 802.11, which is a true industry standard.

If you want to compare it to something like DirectX, you should take a look at the market share of the respective platforms. Windows has >90% global market share in the desktop operating system market, iOS <12% global market share in smartphone OSs. Windows is in a position to force quasi-standards, iOS is not.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Dumb move. This will only accelerate their disruption and ultimate demise.

How so? It seems to me it would be odd to continue selling a product that isn't fully compatible w/ Apple's latest OS features. It would just cause consumer confusion. I'd agree w/ you if Fitbit supported HealthKit since iOS devices depend on the 3rd party ecosystem.

 

[bozzykid]

How so? It seems to me it would be odd to continue selling a product that isn't fully compatible w/ Apple's latest OS features.

So why only Fitbit then? Why aren't they removing the rest? This has nothing to do with Healthkit and everything to do with the Apple Watch. Apple is trying to get a part of the accessories pie they missed out on for years. There is a reason why Bose is gone and soon probably any other accessory maker that makes similar products to Apple.

 

[gugy]

I feel exactly the same way.

My friend told me about an interesting development with the pebble - that it will soon have a swim app released on it that enables swim tracking.

http://www.swim.com/pebble

The pebble is waterproof up to 5 ATM (I think that's 50M) and had a price drop to $99 recently. Up til now, I used the misfit shine to track my activity. It tracks sleep & is waterproof so it can kind of track swimming (it tracks that you were active and you can tag that activity as swimming).

I thought that for the same price as the shine, the pebble was worth a shot. I've had it for 2 weeks so far and think it works pretty well. Though I haven't been able to use the swim.com app yet (because the uploader has not been approved by the apple store yet) I have swam with it with no problems. In addition, I like being able to tell time on my wrist again (vs. the shine) and while not the prettiest, I get notification through the pebble as well. Ironically, misfit has a pebble app which tracks your steps & sleep on the pebble so once they get the sync issues fixed I may be able to give my shine to my wife.

Among the other nice things with the pebble are the 3-4 day battery life, alarms (buzzes on wrist), and the e-ink type display (you can see it very easily in sunlight). My hope is that this will at least tie me over until apple improve the battery life & waterproofs the apple watch.

Pebble swimming app is interesting. I just don't like the watch design at all, so I am not looking into buy it.
Hopefully sooner than later Apple will address the waterproof issue. I just don't want to ever think of taking my watch out every time I have water in the mix. I know it can be water resistant to some degreed but I would't take a shower with the AppleWatch on.

 

[Soulweaponry]

Apple products are sold at other retailers. Discontinuing too many choices could backfire on Apple.

My thought as well. Apple should want people to buy fitbit in their stores vs best buy. Main reason? More people and more chances mean more opportunity to sell apple stuff. I bought my Nike fuel band when it came out (have since used a fitbit) at the Apple Store and while I was there, bought a new case for my phone, replaced my Apple headphones and talked to a sales associate about a new retina MacBook. And this was all from just a trip to buy a fuel band at the Apple store.

But Apple wants to reduce chances to sell stuff? Ok. Go ahead.

----------

lol, yeah. fitbit.. similar to an apple watch. in every way. except... well, maybe in one or two ways. lol. well.. maybe not. ok, they both count steps.

So a fitbit is also like my iPhone then? Cause an iPhone also counts steps. Stopped using my Fitbit flex ever since getting my 6 since fitbit lets you use the iPhone as the tracker. Now I don't see a reason to ever use an actual fitbit tracker.

 

[manu chao]

"Fitbit told its users that it had no plans to integrate with Apple's HealthKit"

That's reason enough. There's no reason for Apple to sell or showcase items in its store that don't integrate well with their own products.

Reject all newspaper or magazine apps that don't use the Newsstand 'folder'? Remove all mapping applications that don't use Apple map data? Remove all audio apps that don't integrate with Apple's Music app? Remove podcast clients that don't sync with iTunes? Don't let third-party apps use the phone's sensors for fitness tracking if they don't integrated the data back into Health Kit?

Apple has learned that in the software market, blocking competing services is not in the customers interest and also not in Apple's interest.

Apple is free to sell whatever physical products it wants in its stores. But there are lots of great products that use competing software solutions to Apple's stock apps. For example, people might use hardware and apps that get images from a camera onto the the iPhone without adding them to what was called the camera roll. Think of professionals tethering their camera to an iOS device in a studio, which might have very good reasons to not feed their large volume of photos into Photostream.

Of course, one could call this as merely as not promoting FitBit as Apple only ever sold a small proportion of all available third-party hardware. In essence, I don't condemn Apple for doing this but I also don't condemn (like you seem to do) FitBit for not integrating with Healthbook.

----------

When I go into an Apple Store, I expect any accessories I buy to work well with my iOS devices. If I buy Fitbit inside the Apple Store only to find out that it will be a half-baked experience because it doesn't support Health Kit, I would be mad.

Just because it doesn't support Healthkit doesn't make it a half-baked experience. What if a third-party fitness app (platform) offers features that you clearly prefer to Healthkit? Is reading Kindle ebooks on an iOS device a half-baked experience?

----------

"Supporting HealthKit" is a completely different thing than "Being reliant on HealthKit". Every single app that support HealthKit that I've seen is also a perfectly functional app without HealthKit support. FitBit would contribute the data it gleans to HealthKit so that other apps could take FitBit's data into account.

Supporting Healthkit might be in FitBit's customer's interest but not in FitBit's interest as it reduces lock-in. The same is true for Apple, not selling devices that don't integrate with Healthbook is in Apple's interest as it increases lock-in into Healthbook and thus Apple but it might not be in the customer's interest because it reduces choice.

 

[bawbac]

So Apple stole their idea and wants to sell their copy of the product.
Hum... sounds familiar....

 

[Kariya]

Well they played hardball by not supporting HealthKit and now this will be the result.

So Apple stole their idea and wants to sell their copy of the product.
Hum... sounds familiar....

Not sure how one of these copies the other...

 

[manu chao]

Oh wow, I missed that bit at first. I had just been thinking that I might get a fitbit to tide me over to the Apple Watch 2. But lack of healthkit integration is a dealbreaker for me.

Because you assume that Healthkit will be a better software platform than FitBit's own app. Which it might purely because multiple hardware vendors can integrate with Healthkit, ie, it is an open platform and not a closed one (as the FitBit app/software platform is).... Wait, do open platforms by default beat closed platforms? And Android and Windows thus beat Apple's offers?

----------

FitBit is hostile to IOS. Good Apple removes them. FitBit lives in the IOS ecosystem, it collect health data. HealthKit is a hub, support it. If not, expect to be downplayed by Apple hard.

I think it´s a power-play by Apple, and an excellent one at that. Either you fully support our ecosystem, strategy and course, or you suffer the consequences.

Adapt or Leave, fitbit chose the latter.

Degrade yourself to a commodity hardware maker and give up hope of creating a platform that provides a comparative advantage to mere hardware makers. Yes, that sounds like a good idea.

----------

I have Fitbit One and Fitbit Flex.

Fitbit produces very generic, low quality products. Health data accuracy is often questionable, hardware design and usability are subpar at best (horrible wristband, poor interactivity), and iOS app often takes a long time to sync.

So far, Fitbit masked these deficiencies with slick packaging, until-now a prime spot at Apple Store and many other places, and excellent customer service.

Now their efforts are waning with backlash from many iOS users (see TUAW's Dear Fitbit: technology is designed to make our lives easier article), users realizing how poorly their hardware are designed, inability to launch new products (see Fitbit Force), and the rise of smart watches.

From what I can see, Fitbit's only exit strategy is being acquired by a watch maker or other consumer electronic giant.

Funny, I have a FitBit One and cannot report any problems or slowness. But thankfully we have people that can deduct the future of a company just using a single complaint (slow syncing).

----------

as a fitbit customer Im a bit miffed at the healthkit thing. For the life of me I don't know why they aren't onboard.

They might think that requiring their customers to use their software will at this very early stage of Healthbook's existence lead to higher user satisfaction.

 

[vhalik]

Apple products are sold at other retailers. Discontinuing too many choices could backfire on Apple.

That is an invalid statement. Apple stores are owned by Apple that sell Apple products, and any other product that integrates into their product. Best Buy is a retail store that sells all kinds of brands to attract all kinds of customers. Those brands that Best Buy carries are dictated by market and supply and demand. Sure Best Buy can discontinue carrying a product for the same reasons as Apple but at the cost of potentially losing that specific customer base. Apple does not have to deal with that issue because customers going into an Apple store are looking for Apple products.

 

[Sylon]

Eh, it won't bother me. You can still get Fitbit devices in many other stores, if you can even find one. While this will be a small hit to Fitbit because they have a new pair of wearable products about to launch, it also takes away from Apple. It was only last year when Fitbits were sold out everywhere. I had to wait a month just to get my Flex and I have no clue how my family found a Force to give me for Xmas (which I still use to this day). I don't think Fitbit will even notice their products not being sold in Apple stores. I think they will be just fine.

 

[Navdakilla]

Interesting, like others have said. I wonder how this will effect revenue

 

[vhalik]

So Apple stole their idea and wants to sell their copy of the product.
Hum... sounds familiar....

Yeah, you sound like a bitter and ignorant person. Do a little research and get your facts straight. No one likes an ignorant idiot.

Apple might be late to the game, but they weren't the only ones who created an "activity tracker" device. Those who have "activity trackers" like Jawbone, Garmin, Nike or countless others; if they had their own stores they would not carry fitbit and understandably so.

 

[Suture]

I've owned/purchased quite a few of Fitbit's products (Ultra x2, One, Force, Flex, Zip, and the Aria). I've given them out also to friends/family members as I've swapped one model for another. It's fun to compete, and while Fitbit's comments were pretty bold -- considering other apps like MFP were ready so early -- the Fitbit still does what I want it to do. Dumping a product because it won't support a new feature seems shallow to me. That's like saying "My car doesn't support the new CarPlay, so !@#$ you, AUDI!"

I plan on purchasing a Fitbit Charge, as I returned my Force for a Flex during rashgate. Would I like Fitbit to support HealthKit? Hell yes. But I'm not dumping it just because it won't. It still does everything on the box it says it would do. But I think their stance on telling everyone they'll consider it later, and to notify them if we think HK should be supported is ignorant to say the least.

 

[nutmac]

Funny, I have a FitBit One and cannot report any problems or slowness. But thankfully we have people that can deduct the future of a company just using a single complaint (slow syncing).

A single complaint? Look at some of the App Review as well as Fitbit's community. I am definitely not the only one who experience slow sync often.

Don't get me wrong. When it works, sync is pretty quick. But more often than not, it takes 10 seconds or more.

Anyway, I can certainly put up with slow sync. But it's the combination of problems (low quality hardware and poor usability on the hardware being my top complaints) that build up to my dissatisfaction with the company's directions.

 

[darkslide29]

I can kinda see where you're going with that, but we're talking about two different things here.

For example, IF the upcoming iOS9 had a cool, new feature for magazines in the Newstand App (for the sake of discussion, let's just say your iPad can now scan your magazine mailing label barcode and instantly have the magazine show up on your Newstand App, for select magazine partners), and IF Apple also sold physical magazines in the Apple Store, I would bet and expect that only those magazines which are compatible with this new feature would be sold in store.

My example isn't the best since magazines are currently not sold in the Apple Store. But if they were, any magazines that did not want to sign up for the new Newstand app would most certainly be removed from the Apple Store. But would magazine apps that aren't compatible be removed from the App Store completely? No, of course not. They will continue to be sold in the App Store by subscription - you just won't see the magazine featured inside the Apple Store.

Let's not confuse the Apple Store (the physical store) which has a limited amount of retail space, with the App Store (on your iOS or Mac). When you start talking about removing apps from the app store, that's a whole different discussion and topic. This is not what's happening here. Apple is not removing the fitbit app from the App Store.

If fitbit was removed from the Apple Store AND the App Store (and especially if fitbit DID support Health Kit), then I can understand this looking very strange. But the fact is that Apple is counting on third party companies to make hardware for Health Kit, and for Home Kit.

You can't blame them for wanting to highlight products that are using their latest iOS features by featuring those items in their Apple Store.

Reject all newspaper or magazine apps that don't use the Newsstand 'folder'? Remove all mapping applications that don't use Apple map data? Remove all audio apps that don't integrate with Apple's Music app? Remove podcast clients that don't sync with iTunes? Don't let third-party apps use the phone's sensors for fitness tracking if they don't integrated the data back into Health Kit?

Apple has learned that in the software market, blocking competing services is not in the customers interest and also not in Apple's interest.

Apple is free to sell whatever physical products it wants in its stores. But there are lots of great products that use competing software solutions to Apple's stock apps. For example, people might use hardware and apps that get images from a camera onto the the iPhone without adding them to what was called the camera roll. Think of professionals tethering their camera to an iOS device in a studio, which might have very good reasons to not feed their large volume of photos into Photostream.

Of course, one could call this as merely as not promoting FitBit as Apple only ever sold a small proportion of all available third-party hardware. In essence, I don't condemn Apple for doing this but I also don't condemn (like you seem to do) FitBit for not integrating with Healthbook.

 

[ScottNWDW]

I have been a loyal Fitbit customer for at least 3 years now. Starting with the Ultra and then replacing it when it fell off, then for the past 2 years using the fitbit One. I also have the Aria scale. I love my fitbit, I've also been intrigued by the Withings news Pulse O2 tracker and there app looks pretty nice, and guess whet it works with the Health App. I was hoping that fit bit's app would work with health, but now that they have announced that they won't be supporting it, makes the Withings app and devices more attractive.

I may have to ditch fitbit.

 

[apolloa]

Most here will try to say Apple should be removing them because they don't support Healthkit. However, the fact is very few products are actually supporting Healthkit currently. We all know the real reason is because Apple is coming out with the Apple Watch. But I'm sure this thread will be 100 pages long crapping all over Fitbit for not supporting Healthkit.

It is clear Apple is starting to remove products from the Apple Store that compete with their own products. They did it with Bose and now Fitbit. They certainly have that right. However, pushing away partners that make the iOS ecosystem so strong may not be wise in the long run. You can bet Fitbit is going to start putting more resources into the Android in case Apple does even more to lock them out of iOS.

Yeap pretty much knocked the nail on the head there, a carbon copy of the Bose thread...
Personally I applaud FitBit for rejecting support for Apples proprietary system, just like I applaud those shops for rejecting Apple's proprietary wireless payment system. Lets Apple remember the world does not revolve around them.

 

[proline]

Sleep tracking is one of the main things that attracts me to Fitbit.

The Apple watch won't be able to track sleep, since that's when they expect people to charge it every night.

Honestly, as odd as it sounds, that's one of the main marks against the Aple Watch in my brain right now.

Too bad you know nothing about the battery life of the iWatch or what the iWatch its energy profile will be, but don't let that stop you from commenting. If for example the iWatch can be used overnight with minimal power drain, as would seem likely considering the screen would be off the whole time, and if the iWatch charges within an hour or two, then it is entirely possible the iWatch could be charge in the evening, worn overnight, and used the next day.

 

[manu chao]

A single complaint? Look at some of the App Review as well as Fitbit's community. I am definitely not the only one who experience slow sync often.

Don't get me wrong. When it works, sync is pretty quick. But more often than not, it takes 10 seconds or more.

Anyway, I can certainly put up with slow sync. But it's the combination of problems (low quality hardware and poor usability on the hardware being my top complaints) that build up to my dissatisfaction with the company's directions.

I can see nothing that would warrant the label 'low quality hardware' with my FitBit One. It actually is very nice hardware that looks very robust.

 

[nutmac]

I can see nothing that would warrant the label 'low quality hardware' with my FitBit One. It actually is very nice hardware that looks very robust.

Fitbit One, at least the unit itself, is actually fairly solid. The button could be better, but it's fairly solid. The belt clip, on the other hand, is quite poor and does not fit into most of my belt or pants well.

Fitbit Flex is much worse. Not only is the display pretty crappy, it requires slapping the unit (the manual says tap but that rarely works) to interact with the unit (e.g., snoozing the alarm). And the wristband wears out very easily and the fit is also quite poor.

 

[charlituna]

I'll need to bookmark this, because when I'm standing in line to buy a stupid Watch, this'll be why. *sigh*

Not at all. No one is making you buy an apple watch. You can go get whatever you want, it just might be from somewhere other than an Apple Retail Store

 

[manu chao]

Fitbit One, at least the unit itself, is actually fairly solid. The button could be better, but it's fairly solid. The belt clip, on the other hand, is quite poor and does not fit into most of my belt or pants well.

What exactly could be improved on the belt clip?

 

[SusanK]

That is an invalid statement. Apple stores are owned by Apple that sell Apple products, and any other product that integrates into their product. Best Buy is a retail store that sells all kinds of brands to attract all kinds of customers. Those brands that Best Buy carries are dictated by market and supply and demand. Sure Best Buy can discontinue carrying a product for the same reasons as Apple but at the cost of potentially losing that specific customer base. Apple does not have to deal with that issue because customers going into an Apple store are looking for Apple products.

I don't think I made a reference to Best Buy. I agree that the Apple store can sell whatever Apple pleases. They can sell apples if they like. OK by me