The zombie-like remains of bankrupt wearables company Jawbone is suing Apple for patent infringement. The claim relates to the noise-cancelling features used in AirPods Pro and AirPods Max models.
Jawbone was once a successful company in the wearables and audio business, with its fitness bands sold in Apple stores …
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According to a report from TechCrunch, Jawbone is exiting the consumer hardware market and will shift its strategy to selling services and products directly to businesses in the health market. The report comes following earlier claims that Jawbone had run out of money.
Last week, a report emerged claiming that Jawbone, the company behind many Bluetooth speakers and fitness wearbles, was going to stop making its UP line of fitness trackers. At the time, it was reported that the company would stop selling its UP2, UP3, and UP4 trackers. Now, however, Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman has shared a blog post saying that last week’s report is “unequivocally false.”
Update: Jawbone says that the report is “unequivocally false”. Read the company’s update at its blog.
According to a report this evening from Tech Insider, Jawbone, the company once famous for its Bluetooth headsets and more recently known for its Jambox speakers and fitness wearables, has stopped making the UP line of fitness trackers. This includes three devices that the company has reportedly struggled to sell: the UP2, UP3, and UP4. Another report says that a clinical-grade wearable is coming soon…
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Apple removed most Jawbone and Nike fitness bands from its retail stores back in March, during the run-up to the launch of the Apple Watch. It was assumed then that Apple was purging products that might be felt to compete with its own wearable.
But Jawbone Senior Product Manager Jason Donahue said that its UP2 fitness band will be available in Apple Stores shortly, reports Japanese site Macotakara. The statement was made during a product launch in Japan …
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Even though the long-delayed Up3 isn’t shipping until later this month, Jawbone this evening has taken the wraps off of two new fitness trackers, the Up4 and the Up2. The latter is a replacement for the Up24 released in 2013, while the former is a new fitness tracker by the company. The Up4 most notably adds support for on-band wireless payments from American Express. Both watches pair with your iPhone over Bluetooth.
Jawbone announced this evening that it finally expects to begin fulfilling pre-orders of its Up3 fitness tracker on April 20th. The company expects all pre-orders to ship no later than mid-May. After pre-orders have been fulfilled, Jawbone will begin shipping new orders of the Up3. Pre-orders will ship in the order they were received.
Ahead of the April 24th launch of its first wearable, Apple has started removing competing health and fitness products from its retail stores. Re/code reports that the company is pulling fitness bands from Nike and Jawbone from its shelves.
It’s not the first time Apple has stopped selling a product to avoid competition. Last year the retailer removed Bose products from its stores after the NFL banned Apple-owned Beats headphones from appearing on camera to accommodate a Bose sponsorship deal, and Bose filed a lawsuit against Beats.
Bose’s products eventually reappeared in Apple Stores. Whether Jawbone and Nike will have similar luck once the Apple Watch has picked up some sales is unknown, but unlikely.
Fitness gadget maker Jawbone announced today that it has launched a new “partner marketplace” for third-party apps and hardware that work together in an attempt to embrace the “Internet of Things.”
The new store features “smart home” products like the Nest Learning Thermostat and other automation tools, such as Automatic’s driving assistant. Software, like the Sleepio app, are also available.
I’ve already broken down the best gifts for students this holiday season, but now it’s time to talk about the best gifts for all the Apple lovers in your life. These are most of the products that I use on a daily basis. Whether I use them on-the-go, while working, or pretty much 24/7, these are some of the best products that have earned a coveted spot in my daily routine.
Apple Watch will include fitness and health tracking features
Update: Fitbit statement below the fold…
If you’re in the market for a Fitbit device and you’re shopping at the Apple Store, you’ll probably have to shop elsewhere to purchase the fitness tracker. Following report from Re/Code last month that Apple planned to drop the Fitbit line of wearable devices from its Apple Store lineup, Apple has today removed the Fitbit Flex and other Fitbit products from its online store following low inventory over the past week. While its unclear why Apple is no longer selling Fitbit products through its retail channels, on the surface the move is similar to Apple’s decision to discontinue selling Bose headphones and speakers at its retail and online stores.
In the face of new competition from Apple, smartwatch maker Pebble has released an update to the device’s firmware that enables all-new activity tracking features for health applications. To accompany this update, new Pebble apps from Jawbone and others that integrate with the health and fitness tracking features.
The app by Misfit will be capable of monitoring sleep and movement using the watch’s built-in sensors, while Jawbone’s “UP” watchface will be able to track similar data and sync back to the Jawbone UP service via a smartphone connection. Perhaps the most interesting application of these new features is the Swim.com application, which can “measure distance, pace, times, strokes, and efficiency while swimming” and later relay the data back to an app on a smartphone.
The new firmware also includes the ability to quickly launch your favorite apps using one of the device’s hardware buttons.
The update is available for the $99 Pebble or $199 Pebble Steel and can be downloaded through the Pebble iOS app.
Pebble Firmware 2.6 Release Notes
- NEW: Activity. Activity tracking apps (e.g. Jawbone, Misfit, Swim.com) for Pebble now work seamlessly in the background. View installed Activity apps and toggle preferences in the Pebble Settings menu. An Activity icon is visible within Pebble menus when a compatible app is installed and running.
- NEW: Quick Launch. Set shortcuts from a watchface to your favorite Pebble apps with a long press of the Up or Down buttons. Enable Quick Launch and set app shortcuts in the Pebble Settings menu.
- Battery icon is now persistent within Pebble menus.
- Select button once again dismisses notifications when paired with an Android device or iOS device on iOS 7 or lower. iOS 8 users get notificaion dismissal for both Pebble and the paired device when pressing Select.
- Bug fixes and improvements.
Over the weekend Apple shared a short list of HealthKit apps that work with the new Health app on iOS 8 after a few apps hit the App Store on Friday with HealthKit support included. Several more iPhone apps using HealthKit to share data with Apple’s Health app on iOS 8 have become available and more are anticipated from some big names shortly. We’ll continue to update the list below over the next few weeks with iPhone apps and accessories with HealthKit and Health support to give you a comprehensive list of apps that can put your Health app to better use.
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Now that Apple has announced its entry into the fitness-tracking wearable space with the Apple Watch, Jawbone, the makers of the UP and UP24 activity trackers, has introduced a version of its UP iPhone app that works without requiring the fitness band. Instead, the new version of Jawbone’s health and fitness iPhone app adds support for Apple’s HealthKit feature and Health app on iOS 8 making UP’s software for tracking activity and sleep as well as logging meals more valuable to iPhone users wanting to fill the new Health app with data.
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We’ve long held that the extra cost of high end Bluetooth speakers from Bose, Ultimate Ears, JBL and Cambridge Audio Minx (all pictured above top row) were well worth the extra money even at prices up near $200 and beyond. But the fact is that not everyone wants to spend a lot of money on a Bluetooth speaker, and portability and ruggedness are often priorities over pure sound. For those people, we went on a search for high quality Bluetooth speakers that cost much less.
Our top 5 are speakers in this category from reviewing about 20 are from Omaker, Koss, Mpow and Boombot…
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Activity trackers can be a good way to monitor not only exercise but also sleep patterns – and now Jawbone’s UP device seems to have found a third application, as an earthquake tracker. The above graph shows the moment at which the magnitude 6 earthquake hit Napa, California, at around 3.20am …
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Jawbone today announced new weight management and food-tracking features via an update for the UP by Jawbone fitness tracking app that pairs with its UP wearables.
Jawbone’s entirely new food-tracking interface for UP helps you simply log food and water, quickly assess the healthiness of foods, and easily track progress toward your target weight… The UP Insight Engine™ provides intelligent guidance around your food choices, calorie consumption and weight goals, helping you understand how each of those is related to activity and sleep.
Highlights for the version 3.2 update include the ability to set goals for weight and calorie intake while using new tools for logging and tracking food consumption. It’s also teaming up with food apps like HealthyOut, Munchery, Nutrisystem, and PlateJoy to sync data and automatically track food ordered through those services.
The updated iPhone app is available on the App Store now.
More details on the new features are in the company’s press release below:
After Steps and Sleep, Jawbone’s UP App Now Offers an Easier, Smarter Way to Track Food and Manage Weight
SAN FRANCISCO, July 16, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — Jawbone® today unveiled new weight management features for UP® , the system that helps you manage your weight, sleep better and stay fit.
Jawbone’s entirely new food-tracking interface for UP helps you simply log food and water, quickly assess the healthiness of foods, and easily track progress toward your target weight.
The UP Insight Engine™ provides intelligent guidance around your food choices, calorie consumption and weight goals, helping you understand how each of those is related to activity and sleep.
“UP and UP24 have inspired millions of people to get engaged in their own health – we’ve shown that living better really is a universally popular proposition,” said Travis Bogard, vice president of product management and strategy at Jawbone. “For the nearly three out of four Americans that are overweight or obese*, living better often includes weight loss. Our new food and weight features for UP, combined with some exciting new food apps we’ve added to the platform, make UP the most complete solution for weight management and a healthy lifestyle.”
Simplified Weight Management
Jawbone’s new and intuitive food-tracking interface for UP delivers an easier, smarter way to track what you eat and manage your weight:
New Food Apps on the UP Platform
Jawbone teamed up with several meal planning and delivery services to take the UP system a step closer toward the promise of automatic logging and customized meal recommendations:
Backed by Industry-Leading Experts
Jawbone’s new weight management system and food tracking tools have been backed by leading dietitian Ashley Koff, RD, an international nutrition expert and regular commentator on health and food issues.
“Food journaling is proven to be an effective method for weight management and weight loss, but writing everything you eat down with pen and paper isn’t convenient for most people. What Jawbone has developed is a really simple solution to this challenge,” said Koff. “While calorie counting is a key part of weight management, the balance of your nutrient intake is equally, if not more, important. It’s great to see a simple Food Score – intelligently developed using several nutrient ratios – alongside calorie counts in the UP system to show you at a glance how well-balanced your food is.”
Development of the new features has been led by Laura Borel, a product manager at Jawbone and founder and former CEO of Nutrivise, a consumer nutrition company acquired by Jawbone last year. Nutrivise delivered personalized and automated meal recommendations based on a user’s unique biometrics and dietary preferences, and was voted “most promising health company” by Stanford Medicine X in 2012.
Available on July 16
UP by Jawbone™ 3.2 for iOS is available today as a free download from the App Store. The UP or UP24™ wristband is required for the app.
Seven years out from the original iPhone’s introduction, and four years past the iPad’s launch, Apple has found its next market ripe for reinvention: the mobile healthcare and fitness-tracking industry. Apple’s interest in healthcare and fitness tracking will be displayed in an iOS application codenamed Healthbook. I first wrote about Apple’s plans for Healthbook in January, and multiple sources working directly on the initiative’s development have since provided new details and images of Healthbook that provide a clearer view of Apple’s plans for dramatically transforming the mobile healthcare and fitness-tracking space…
With Apple’s iWatch looking set to have a major health and fitness angle, and likely to be bristling with sensors, it seems likely that a pedometer will be one of them. Patently Apple reports on an Apple patent designed to allow steps to be accurately tracked using a wrist-mounted device. Or, in patentspeak:
In some implementations, optimizations for detecting steps when a pedometer is worn at a user’s wrist are described. In some implementations, a threshold crossing step detection method can be enhanced for wrist locations by counting the number of positive peaks between comparison threshold crossings, adjusting a minimum peak-to-peak threshold for qualifying threshold crossings, and inferring a second step based on the amount of time between threshold crossings. In some implementations, the pedometer can automatically determine that the pedometer is being worn on a user’s wrist.
Jawbone’s design lead Yves Béhar, meantime, has been imagining how “a wearable kit of sensors” could enable us to effectively take our doctor with us wherever we go in a piece written for TIME …
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We’ve had a lot of experience reviewing the best portable Bluetooth speakers on the market but what haven’t yet covered speakers so small, you can actually wear them, put them on your bike, or listen to them in the shower. We have two for you today.
The first of these is the $30 Divoom Bean, a small, durable little Bluetooth speaker that looks a little like a ‘smurf lock’ and is the size of a large egg with a carabiner attached (blue above). It weighs almost nothing and it charges via a micro-USB port on the bottom. It only has 2 buttons on it, a power button and ‘phone’ button. You’ll need to change volume from your phone or other A2DP Bluetooth device and this device seems to automatically switch off after a few minutes of inactivity. It also functions as a speakerphone.
How did it fare in our tests?
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Apple Stores are offering some notable discounts on certain accessories this month, according to promotional material sent to us in a tip. Two of the deals started this week and a third starts on August 11th.
The first deal is 10% off of select Beats by Dre headphones and speakers. This deal ends on August 10th. The second deal ends on August 31st, and it is for $50 off of the Jawbone Big JamBox.
From 9to5Toys.com:
A large majority of the deals we cover each day come from a variety of ‘Daily Deal’ websites or are so popular that they don’t even last 24 hours. We know you can’t be at your computer every second, so we’re going to round up the best deals each day to make sure you have a fair shot at the deals you want. Be sure to follow 9to5Toys.com so you never miss a deal... Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+.
Also check out the latest 9to5Mac Happy Hour to hear the latest 9to5Toys segment. During the show, there’s a mention of $50 video conversion software currently available for free and the VPN service proXPN.com available at a 20% discount.
Today’s Featured deals:
SOLD OUT SOLD OUT
Belkin releases WeMo Light Switch with support for iOS /Android devices, retails for $50… http://t.co/kd1Y1W4FoD
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) July 22, 2013
Other great deals we love:
New SanDisk Connect wireless storage devices share media w/ up to 5 devices at a time… http://t.co/zU4Ik2eeXH
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) July 22, 2013
