Post the acquisition of Pebble by fitness wearable maker Fitbit, the fanboys of the former had taken to the interwebs to voice their concerns over the fate of devices they own. And this has been one of the bigger questions on everyone’s mind because the latter had bought Pebble for only their patents, tech and software assets.
Fitbit being least concerned with Pebble’s hardware had raised some red flags but the company has now released a statement to reassure its cult followers. In a blog post penned by Pebble developer Jon Barlow, the smartwatch maker has today confirmed that Fitbit will keep their e-paper watches running through 2017. The teams might have started moving to Fitbit’s headquarters but are not actively looking forward to bricking their smartwatches this very instant. Talking about the same, Barlow continues to add:
Talking about the same, Barlow continues to add:
The Pebble SDK, CloudPebble, Timeline APIs, firmware availability, mobile apps, developer portal, and Pebble appstore are all elements of the Pebble ecosystem that will remain in service at this time. Pebble developers are welcome to keep creating and updating apps. Pebble users are free to keep enjoying their watches.
In addition, the company plans to discontinue their cloud services and is working on an update to enable the apps to operate without being dependent on the cloud. Their functionality would then be similar to the company’s own Heath kit and one can expect these changes to roll out in the coming months. The company is also not sure about how long they’ll be able to support smart features including dictation, messaging, weather, among others dependent on third-party services.
This, however, doesn’t exactly shed light on what Fitbit plans to do with this acquisition and when can one expect to see a new product release post the amalgamation of their technologies. The company isn’t planning to give any false hopes to the developer community but instead adding that the members of the same are teaming up to keep the experience alive for continuous use in the long run.
Barlow adds that the foreign developers, outside the company, have always helped them fill the gaps and the tradition is expected to continue even without their independent existence. “We’ve seen a massive influx of community developers teaming up to keep the Pebble watch experience alive, long into the future,” he adds. It would certainly be awesome if the company decides to open-source some components of its platform to the dedicated developer community.
