“There’s a rumor going around that Nike is axing their Nike Fuelband hardware division,” Rene Ritchie writes for iMore. “Whether it ultimately proves to be true or false, given where Apple is and where they may be going with iOS 8, iPhone 6, and perhaps even an iWatch, it makes a ton of sense.”
“If and when Apple has their own wearable on the market, then it wouldn’t matter if you had your iPhone 6 or iWatch with you on any given day,” Ritchie writes. “Even your iPad, conceivably, in your [backpack] while hiking. It would all just work together, syncing Healthbook via iCloud to all your devices.”
“In a world and future like that, a company like Nike wouldn’t have to go to the trouble to make their own fitness band,” Ritchie writes. “They can take all that effort and concentrate on making great software and services instead.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Great software, from Nike? Nike is a “hardware” company. They design shoes, eyeglasses, golf clubs, shorts, caps, golf balls, etc. Physical goods.
There is very little proof that Nike can do software well. Their Nike+ site is so-so and pretty much unnavigable crap when viewed on the iPhone in a mobile browser. They have a handful of iOS apps that seem to work pretty well, but are certainly not something Apple couldn’t do 10 times better in their sleep. All of these Nike stories end up saying the same thing: Let Apple do the hardware and Nike can do the software. Pfft. Nike hasn’t magically become a great software company just because they decided to axe their fitness hardware.
Apple can run rings all day long around Nike when it comes to software. They have access to iOS and OS X APIs that nobody else has and they control the hardware in total, including the Apple M7 motion coprocessor. Nike offers nothing that Apple can’t do far, far better when it comes to software (or hardware).
What would Nike really be bringing to the table here? Our best guess: Retail and branding. Nike is in thousands upon thousands of locations worldwide where Apple is not. Nike can help Apple sell the product via the Nike brand and their existing relationships with a massive network of retailers. Nike’s core competency is not software, it’s sporting goods and retail.
Nike is smart to outsource their fitness hardware to Apple and the iWatch because they know they will not be able to compete. Likely they’ve got a pretty clear idea of what Apple’s about to do and they’ve smartly decided to climb onboard and help where they can.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Apple and Nike gearing up for a big announcement this fall – April 22, 2014
Nike failed. Now only Apple can save wearables – April 22, 2014
Buh-bye FuelBand: With friends like Apple, Nike doesn’t need its own hardware – April 21, 2014
Nike fires majority of FuelBand team, to stop making wearable hardware – April 19, 2014