Nearly a decade after Pebble ceased operations, new Pebble smartwatches are on the way—technically, two smartwatches using PebbleOS. The creator of the original Pebble and CEO of the new Core Devices company, Eric Migicovsky, announced that the two new Core 2 Duo and Core Time 2 smartwatches are now available to pre-order.
The Core 2 Duo resembles the Pebble 2 a great deal. It will have most of the features available with that device and costs $149. Shipment is expected in July. The Core Time 2 has a larger 64-color display and metal frame. It costs $225 and will ship in December.
These devices feature an always-on e-paper screen, long battery life, simple design, physical buttons, and an open-sourced OS. While Android users will have a ton of new features, Migicovsky wrote a second blog post to criticize Apple’s App Store rules and limitations for third-party smartwatches saying the new Pebble watches will have iPhone compatibility, but it will kind of suck.
According to Pebble’s creator, Apple restricts third-party smartwatches from being “awesome with iPhones.” He says that over the years, Apple only made the integration worse, and adding an app to the App Store is a “gigantic pain,” as for every update, a “random app reviewer” could deny the updates.
While the App Store doesn’t work exactly like that, there are other reasons why the new Pebble smartwatches won’t be as good on your iPhone:
- You can’t send text messages or iMessage
- Can’t reply to notifications or take actions
- It’s harder to integrate the Pebble app with other apps (like Strava)
- If the Pebble app has been closed, the watch can’t talk to the app or the internet
- The iPhone will still buzz for notifications even if your Pebble watch informs you that someone messaged you
- It’s harder for Core Devices to offer third-party watch faces/apps and let developers charge for their work, as these payments need to go through the App Store
Migicovsky says: “Apple claims their restrictions on competitors are only about security, privacy, crafting a better experience etc etc. At least that’s what they tell you as they tuck you into bed. I personally don’t agree – they’re clearly using their market power to lock consumers into their walled ecosystem. This causes there to be less competition, which increases prices and reduces innovation. DOJ seems to agree. For now at least…Tim Apple paid $1m to sit near Trump at the inauguration, so who knows how long until Trump tells DOJ to drop the case. There’s also an Apple Watch class-action lawsuit working its way through the system.”
Wrap up
With all that in mind, it’s exciting that there are two Pebble smartwatches available, and they have iPhone compatibility. However, keep in mind that Apple users’ experience won’t be as good as if they were using Android devices.
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