“Smartwatch maker Pebble will lay off 40 employees this week, the company confirmed Tuesday,” Brett Molina reports for USA Today.
“During an interview with Tech Insider, Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky cited a conservative fundraising environment in Silicon Valley for the cuts, which amount to about 25% of Pebble’s workforce,” Molina reports. “”
“Although Pebble was among the first to hit the smartwatch market with its line of Pebble devices, the company has faced serious competition from companies including Fitbit and Apple with its Apple Watch,” Molina reports. “Earlier this week, Apple dropped the price of Apple Watch to $299.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Condolences to the affected employees, but this is the sort of thing that happens to companies peddling dead-end, futureless platforms.
There’s only one company making real smartwatches and it isn’t Pebble.
MacDailyNews Note: Today is Good Friday. As such, the U.S. financial markets are closed for the day and posting will be less frequent today.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward W.” for the heads up.]
Time’s up.
Hmmm, 25%, reminds me of another bigger company whose common name is a TLA starting with “I.” The 25% part, that is.
Wow, fitbits taking no prisoners😜
MDN, I am really tired of having to deny cdn.adfront.org access to location data. Please try to do something about it.
Yes the adfront location nonsense, the auto-play ads at top, the ad reminders of stuff I casually looked at at the B&H site (for which I DONT need an obnoxious reminder or added inducement). MDN is a favorite but also the worst in terms of ad assaults and irresponsible ad behavior. And it isn’t changing despite pleas for tolerance. I guess desperate financial need will lead you to risk alienating the very crowd you wish to attract and taxing their patience. I know MDN hates comments like these but please give us some responsible relief! Happy Easter weekend!
C’mon, don’t you care that Kylie Jenner’s dress dropped jaws at the Met Galas
Sorry, pathetic attention starved transexuals who aren’t very attractive aren’t met with much enthusiasm on a tech site (with delusions of overdone ad grandeur).
Kylie Jenner isn’t trans. You may be confusing her with her parent Caitlyn née Bruce Jenner. I admit it’s difficult to keep up with the Kardashians, with all these reality show spinoffs.
I wasn’t confused I just misread the name. I TRY not to keep up with the Kardashians (and only wish there was a news blackout app for TV and the web that would blank out any mention of them or their misbegotten lives). That’s the pursuit of losers without a life.
Who are the Kardashians?
Exactly.
MDN is a cesspool of advertising crap, bordering on malware without the use of an ad blocker. Get uBlock and you won’t have to put up with it anymore.
uBlock Safari – https://extensions.apple.com/details/?id=net.gorhill.uBlock-96G4BAKDQ9
uBlock Chrome – https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm
Wonder how long before the goons that run MDN take down this comment.
MDN is a cesspool of advertising crap, bordering on malware without the use of an ad blocker. Get uBlock and you won’t have to put up with it anymore.
uBlock Safari – https://extensions.apple.com/details/?id=net.gorhill.uBlock-96G4BAKDQ9
uBlock Chrome – https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm
Wonder how long before the goons that run MDN take down this comment.
I backed Pebble on Kickstarter for both versions of their product. They did what they did pretty well, but not as good as an Apple Watch if you had an iPhone. Still I was happy to see a competitor existed to push the tech forward. I knew the Pebble would be a disposable watch, but I’m glad I bought one as it showed Apple what a wearable could do.
Don’t be an idiot! Pebble did not show Apple anything. As soon S Apple was “rumored” to be working on a watch so called “competitors” like Pebble and Samsung started churning out crapwarches just to be first. Then later Apple came out with how it really should be done. Now the result is your so. Allied competitor, Pebble, is going out of business.
More Apple Roadkill!
I would love to see a new updated list of Products Apple has rendered obsolete!
Message to existing employees “The writing is on the Walls!”
“Today is Good Friday. As such, the U.S. financial markets are closed for the day and posting will be less frequent today.”
Dear MDN,
Could there be any other reason to take the day off other than that the markets are closed today? What does Good Friday represent to you?
Just because Jesus died for our sins doesn’t mean that any website operator has to shut down on any given day, holy or not. It’s business, Corleone style — you respect tradition, but you make your own destiny,
It seems like MDN is trying to turn into a financial news site but I don’t think that they know that the stock markets of the world don’t all close down when the US markets close down. There are many news sources around the world that report things on Apple and AAPL and many are in counties that are potentially of huge importance to AAPL and Apple. China, Middle East, India, are not closed on Christian or US based holidays.
Who is Jesus?
Something to do with Mac OS or iOS?
When it was introduced in 2007, the iPhone was christened “The Jesus Phone” by members of an entranced media. One million were sold in three months that summer. “This was no ordinary phone. It was a cult with a devoted and rapidly growing following,” according to Losing the Signal (2015) about the thundering downfall of industry leader Research in Motion (Blackberry). Just so, the pantheon of Roman Gods gave way to the rapidly growing cult of Christianity. An old Empire was doomed, a new one heralded by that small, gleaming miracle.
Pebble make great smartwatches (the Round in particular looks fantastic), and the timeline OS is remarkably Apple-like in its simplicity and ease of use. The Time and Time Steel have battery life that knocks the Apple Watch into a cocked hat, and can do 90% of what an Apple Watch can – and in some cases do it much better, not least of which being the fact the screen is always on so you can tell the time without flicking your wrist about.
MDN have previously said they support genuine innovation. Interesting to see that all goes out of the window in favour of a cheap shot when the opportunity arises. The Apple Watch needs competition, and good competition rather than the sloppy mess that’s Android Wear, so gleefulness at this is unpleasant and misplaced.