Fitbit Adds Multi-Device Support and Extensive Bike-Tracking Analytics [iOS Blog]
Fitbit today announced a two-pronged update to its popular line of fitness trackers, adding support for in-depth bike-tracking on the Fitbit Surge and allowing users to easily switch between multiple Fitbit models with “Multi-Tracker Support.”
The company says the added support will grant customers more ease-of-use in switching amongst Fitbit devices throughout the day, or week, allowing them to choose “the right tracker for any occasion.” The update lets any one user pair up to six Fitbit trackers – the maximum amount of Fitbit variants on the market – to their Fitbit account.
After the initial pairing stage, Fitbit will automatically notice when a user switches trackers without needing to enter the Fitbit app. The company notes that as a user transitions amongst trackers throughout the day, for example wearing a “Fitbit One to work, Fitbit Surge for a run, or Tory Burch for Fitbit for a night on the town,” the Fitbit app never pauses or hiccups in curating the usual array of steps and calories burnt as a single statistic across every device.
Also announced today is an update specifically to Fitbit Surge, using GPS and “other advanced sensors” to provide a comprehensive overview of various bike riding statistics, including: distance, duration, average speed, heart rate, and calories burned. Already the beefiest Fitbit, with a 7-day battery life and on-board GPS tracking sensors, the company hopes to broaden its fitness-friendly device with the new cycling-specific features.
“Our users are passionate about fitness and have consistently requested a way to track their outdoor cycling activity. We are delivering this feature on Fitbit Surge for active consumers looking to track and better understand performance during rides, in addition to their other workouts,” said Tim Roberts, VP of Interactive, Fitbit. “Our goal is to provide users with the tools it takes to track their exercise and reward them for doing the activities they love to do most – like biking and running.”
Fitbit noted that while the Multi-Tracker Support is slated to hit later this week, the bike-tracking features won’t roll out in North America until sometime in April, “with global availability coming soon.” The nebulous April launch window for the cycling-focused update sees the company beefing up the features of the Fitbit Surge, the tracker most in direct competition with the Apple Watch, which at $249 is still $100 cheaper than the 38mm Apple Watch Sport.
Help us 3D Print some Lloyd gear in this week’s contest
We’ve thrown everything you can imagine at this 3D Printer. Well, almost everything.
For the past few weeks we’ve been putting an Ultimaker 2 through its paces, and learned a ton in the process. We know that making your own accessories can be cool, dealing with failure can make you want to rip your hair out, and ultimately it’s fun to try new things. There’s even a mostly pointless Moto 360 pocketwatch adapter out in the world thanks to the experiences we’ve had so far. We’ve got a few more posts on the way about our experiences with 3D Printing so far — including whether or not this tech is ready to life in every house — but something was missing from the experience, our good buddy Lloyd.
What you see before you is a simple contest to get some Lloyd gear into the 3D Printing world, and the winner of this contest will walk away with an Android Wear watch of their choosing.
Instagram launches new app for everyone else after a year of abandonment on Windows Phone
Today owners of the iPhone, or any of the vast number of Android phones in the world, had something new from Instagram. Layout is the popular photo sharing service’s take on the collage, allowing you to group together a bunch of your favorite images and share them with your friends and the wider world on your favorite sharing service. And it came a day over one full year since the last update to the Instagram app for Windows Phone.
While that’s a pretty bad state of affairs, it’s at least one we can do something about.
Tubecast for Windows 8.1 lets you do more than just watch Youtube videos
Tubecast is an awesome Youtube application for Windows Phone, and now it’s also available for Windows. We’ve been playing with it for the past few days and it feels a lot like the Windows Phone app. You can use it to watch Youtube videos, download videos to your machine, and cast video to DLNA devices such as a smart TV or the Xbox One. Want to see it in action? Take a look at our hands-on video.
Twitter begins testing autoplay videos on iOS
Twitter has recently started testing an autoplay feature for videos in some users’ news feeds.
The feature works similar to Facebook’s implementation and applies to video ads, user uploaded videos, and clips from Twitter’s Amplify program. AdAge, citing an unnamed source, reports that Twitter is testing the two different variants of the autoplay feature:
In one prong of the experiment, some people will see entire videos automatically play in a loop, while in the other, users will see looping 6-second autoplay previews teasing a video, the person said. Both formats will play the videos on mute. If people click on either video format, the video will expand to full-screen and play with sound.
This move is just the latest step in Twitter’s ambitions to further monetize the micro-blogging platform. Enabling autoplay for videos in a user’s newsfeed could potentially give advertisers and content creators an unimpeded route to more views by bypassing the click-to-play barrier.
It’s unclear how wide the test is right now, but there’s a chance you could start seeing autoplay videos in your feed soon as Twitter looks to gauge user reaction to the feature.
Source: AdAge
Twitter begins testing autoplay videos on iOS
Twitter has recently started testing an autoplay feature for videos in some users’ news feeds.
The feature works similar to Facebook’s implementation and applies to video ads, user uploaded videos, and clips from Twitter’s Amplify program. AdAge, citing an unnamed source, reports that Twitter is testing the two different variants of the autoplay feature:
In one prong of the experiment, some people will see entire videos automatically play in a loop, while in the other, users will see looping 6-second autoplay previews teasing a video, the person said. Both formats will play the videos on mute. If people click on either video format, the video will expand to full-screen and play with sound.
This move is just the latest step in Twitter’s ambitions to further monetize the micro-blogging platform. Enabling autoplay for videos in a user’s newsfeed could potentially give advertisers and content creators an unimpeded route to more views by bypassing the click-to-play barrier.
It’s unclear how wide the test is right now, but there’s a chance you could start seeing autoplay videos in your feed soon as Twitter looks to gauge user reaction to the feature.
Source: AdAge
Images of Apple Wireless Keyboard With Backlight Keys and Power Button Appear in Online Store
A new Apple wireless keyboard featuring backlight keys and a power button has been spotted on the Apple Online Store in Czech Republic and Hungary, with an identical Arabic version appearing on the U.S. storefront. The graphic render shows controls for adjusting the brightness of the backlight added to the F5 and F6 keys, as found on current MacBook models, while the eject key for CDs has been replaced with a power button.
Apple has not updated the product description for its wireless keyboard to match the new visualization, so it remains to be seen if this was simply a mistake or if the company will quietly refresh the keyboard in the near future. The old Apple Wireless Keyboard with no backlight keys and an eject key is still shown on the Apple Online Store in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries.
The addition of a power button on the keyboard is interesting, given that Macs currently do not detect wireless keyboards until after booting. It could be speculated that the power button is for turning on or off the wireless keyboard itself, but additional photos reveal that the keyboard still has a power button on the side in its traditional spot. As such, the exact functionality of the key remains unknown.
(Thanks, Roman!)
New Report Says Display Challenges Have Cut Apple Watch Shipments in Half [iOS Blog]
A new report out of Taiwanese publication Economic Daily News [Google Translate] claims that Apple has cut the expected production and shipping targets of the Apple Watch by half due to manufacturing challenges leading up to the launch of the device. (via GforGames).
The company initially planned to manufacture between 2.5 and 3 million units of the wearable per month, following its launch on April 24. A claim by Economic Daily News now states Apple has lowered expectations to produce 1.25-1.5 million Apple Watches every month.
The website cites sources within Apple’s supply chain, pointing towards production snafus on the manufacturing of the Apple Watch’s AMOLED display as the main culprit behind the tempered production expectations. Although it has yet to be confirmed by Apple itself, Economic Daily News claims the introduction of a new type of display used in Apple’s manufacturing processes – unlike the traditional LCD screens of iPhones – has resulted in a slower production rate on the Apple Watch leading up to the device’s launch.
One of the reasons for this change in plans apparently lies in manufacturing issues with the display (which is being produced by LG), leading to 30-40% yield capacity. Plastic OLED panels use PET (polyethylene terephthalate) instead of a glass substrate, thus giving them flexibility and lightweight. The only problem however, is that manufacturing plastic OLEDs requires a different method of creating a vacuum between the OLED panel and the plastic substrate, other than the traditional water jet vacuum pumps. And because PETs are very sensitive to humidity it looks like manufacturing the Watch’s display is a more complicated process than initially expected.
The source also points to slow production lines thanks to manufacturer Quanta, who has more experience in laptop manufacturing than in smaller devices like the Watch. According to Economic Daily News, Apple is already looking at expanding manufacturing options by involving Foxconn in the wearable’s production process in the future.
Similar production-related stories have circulated before the launch of other Apple-related products in the past. Due to the high volume of such reports leading up to a device’s launch, and no official word from Apple, today’s report out of Economic Daily News remains sketchy at best.
The HTC Re camera: An AC editor roundtable
Here’s what we think about HTC’s RE camera now that we’ve used it a bit.
When HTC announced the RE camera in the fall of 2014, plenty of people were curious. HTC is branching out and building “lifestyle” products (their words, not mine) and started with an accessory that was odd-looking, yet intriguing. It didn’t look like a handheld camera (or even a GoPro), but it had a 16-megapixel wide-angle lens and a promise of being able to take great pictures. We all had to try it.
Fast forward a few months, now that we all have had a while to give the RE camera a real-life workout, and it’s time we gave our long-term impression about the handheld camera that looks like an asthma inhaler.
Strap in and have a read.
AppCampus graduate Future Factory lands in the Windows Phone Store, free for a limited time
Future Factory is a new Windows Phone action adventure game that has you dealing with a factory filled with crazy robots. The Windows Phone game is filled with enemies to fight, dangerous traps to avoid and plenty of weapons to upgrade and buy.
Future Factory is an AppCampus alumnus and in just tinkering with the game for a short time, it makes a very nice first impression and to celebrate the game’s release the developers are offering it free for a limited time.
AIVAnet 