Fitbit News and Updates: Company Wants to Launch Its Own Dedicated App Store ASAP
During the Consumer Electronics Show last week in Las Vegas, Nevada, Fitbit announced that they aim to launch their own app store dedicated to their wearable devices "as soon as possible."
The Verge interviewed Fitbit's CEO James Park during CES who said: "There are so many different applications [our partners] want to write from fitness-related ones to pill reminder applications. And we don't have the support in place for that right now, or any software infrastructure on our devices to run those apps."
According to reports, Fitbit is going to utilize their recent acquisition of Pebble, another wearable company, in their plans of putting up their own app store. In the meantime, The Verge also noted that in the five years of Pebble's existence before it was acquired by Fitbit, it was able to gather up to 14,000 third-party apps in its own app store.
Wareable noted that Fitbit acquired Pebble through a $40 million deal that includes its engineers, a number of whom have worked on Pebble's app store. The report also mentioned that Fitbit's active development could mean that a new fitness tracker or smartwatch is in the pipeline.
Park added, according to The Verge, that putting up their own app store will benefit their partnership with health care companies that make use of Fitbit products for their corporate wellness programs.
Aside from the planned app store, Fitbit has also announced new features to make the Fitbit platform more personalized and to give more inspiration to its users. The company launched the new Personal Goal Setting option where Fitbit owners can answer a survey and get a more tailored daily activity goal to follow.
In March, Fitbit is also going to launch a new Community tab that works much like a social media platform where Fitbit owners can share with other users the progress they are making through photos and blogs.
When asked when Fitbit's own app store would go live, Park only told The Verge that it will be up "as soon as possible" so there's a good chance that it will be up and running this year.
