How come you are so exited about the Nike thing??? That would probably be proprietary solution, so the apps we currently use could not work with the Nike hardware.
I'm hoping for free accessories that all apps could support. I don't want to switch back from the dedicated bike cyclometer B.iCycle to a standard non-biking app just because of e.g. a heart rate sensor.
Yes it would, but have you seen the patent?
a) It looks a good system
b) Having Nike do it doesn't lock anyone else out. However It does mean that others will have to raise their game. Which is what we want, right?
An oopensource framework for sensors and an sports app would be cool, but it's more likely that at least at first, the apps will be about getting users locked into a system, and hardware and app sales.
Yes, you'll have to jump ship. But someone like Nike would be likely to have the resources to be able to set it up s you could start communicating with more and more sensor models. They could be greedy gits, and not make backwards compatability to the big HR hardware out there.
To be honest, it'll likely be a bit of a messy fight out between the manufacturers.
Still - if RunKeeper, motionbased, Trails etc can incorporate connection to a known good model,i'm sure lots will buy the hardware sensors to have that integration with the app.
Long and short - it's going to be a bit expensive, but likely worth it
Some features are just about individual's logged stats, but with a bigger community means omre funding for the person running the community, allowing more extras to be added on, more ways of viewing data, more ways to log, more detail, more social interaction. Nike has the social side. If they got their act together, they could make it big. Would spur Asics etc to do something about it, right? We'll see. Even just having what was explained in the patent would be a big step up.
