3 ms·

There once was Pebble. You could write dev apps in a straightforward easy to program no lock-in no review workflow. And then guess who buys them out and flush

There once was Pebble. You could write dev apps in a straightforward easy to program no lock-in no review workflow. And then guess who buys them out and flushes all that dev goodness in the toilet? Yes, fitbit.

brlewis 9y ago
There was once Pebble. They went out of business and their assets went up for sale. Then guess who buys some of their assets and keeps some of that dev goodness alive? Yes, Fitbit.
- endianswap 9y ago
  "Principal Software Engineer, Fitbit, Inc." Common practice here is to disclose that when making comments...
  - brlewis 9y ago
    You can find many examples in my comment history where I mention that I work for but don't speak for Fitbit. I don't feel it's necessary to mention it for extremely basic fact correction as in this case. The details of what was and wasn't acquired are public and widely known.
mafuyu 9y ago
The Fitbit SDK is a direct continuation of a lot of the awesome work Pebble did, much of it by the same people. The Ionic may be aimed at a slightly different market, but we’re still working hard at trying to keep that dev goodness alive.
c22 9y ago
There still is pebble. I recently found my pebble time at the back of a desk after not using it for over a year. I was sure it'd be a crippled mess without cloud services and I'd have to jump through hoops to make it do anything useful. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the community is still strong and the watch works even better now without any cloud requirements. Features like voice to text which I recall being clunky and error prone work like a charm. I was worried I'd have to write my own watchface but there are literally hundreds available to choose from. The benefit of fostering an open ecosystem from day one is paying off even a year after the company's "demise." I suggest picking one up on eBay.

3 ms·

There once was Pebble. You could write dev apps in a straightforward easy to program no lock-in no review workflow. And then guess who buys them out and flush

by qualitytime 9y ago

brlewis 9y ago
There was once Pebble. They went out of business and their assets went up for sale. Then guess who buys some of their assets and keeps some of that dev goodness alive? Yes, Fitbit.
- endianswap 9y ago
  "Principal Software Engineer, Fitbit, Inc." Common practice here is to disclose that when making comments...
  - brlewis 9y ago
    You can find many examples in my comment history where I mention that I work for but don't speak for Fitbit. I don't feel it's necessary to mention it for extremely basic fact correction as in this case. The details of what was and wasn't acquired are public and widely known.
mafuyu 9y ago
The Fitbit SDK is a direct continuation of a lot of the awesome work Pebble did, much of it by the same people. The Ionic may be aimed at a slightly different market, but we’re still working hard at trying to keep that dev goodness alive.
c22 9y ago
There still is pebble. I recently found my pebble time at the back of a desk after not using it for over a year. I was sure it'd be a crippled mess without cloud services and I'd have to jump through hoops to make it do anything useful. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the community is still strong and the watch works even better now without any cloud requirements. Features like voice to text which I recall being clunky and error prone work like a charm. I was worried I'd have to write my own watchface but there are literally hundreds available to choose from. The benefit of fostering an open ecosystem from day one is paying off even a year after the company's "demise." I suggest picking one up on eBay.