Apple, Nike Team Up to Power Your Workout - Background and Commentary
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This partnership didn’t come without a few bumps. While Business Week noted that the two companies are very similar in their design and marketing, and their design teams clicked well, there were certain points of contention. Take the sensor that goes in the insole, for example. The initial designs were too big for Nike’s team and too small for Apple’s team. Battery life was a challenge, too; at 1,000 hours, it’s supposed to last longer than the sneakers. Perhaps the biggest challenge, though, was the wireless technology itself. As Apple CEO Steve Jobs put it, “The last thing you wanted was a wire going down your leg.”
Nike has tried to team up with other companies to market digital music players for athletes before, with both Rio and Philips Electronics. Teaming up in this way with Apple could easily become much bigger than either of those partnerships ever did. The two companies have plans for more products, but both are being tight-lipped about what will come out of the lab next.
It’s impossible to gauge the impact of a product before it’s even on the market, but the reactions have been interesting so far. They range from John Dvorak’s “Does this sound a little nutty to anyone but me?” to Apple fans complaining that the product doesn’t go far enough. Why, for example, is it only available for runners and not bicyclists? This is particularly ironic since Lance Armstrong is one of the athletes promoting the product. Some also wondered whether the monitor would be accurate enough to be worth using. And of course there have been plenty of people who raised the compatibility/open platform issues I mentioned earlier. I look forward to seeing how Apple and Nike address these questions.
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