Tag Archives: apple

Fitbit’s Latest Fitness Trackers Off To Strong Start

Wearable fitness device maker Fitbit ( FIT ) announced Thursday that it shipped more than 1 million units each of its latest products — the Fitbit Blaze smart fitness watch and Fitbit Alta fitness wristband — in their first month of availability. Fitbit stock has been depressed this year in part because investors were disappointed in the company’s products announced since the CES in January. Fitbit went public last June 18 at 20 and climbed as high as 51.90 on Aug. 5. Fitbit stock was up over 6% to above 14 in midday trading on the stock market today . Fitbit’s message on Thursday was that both new products are off to a strong start. The San Francisco-based company said its Blaze sales have exceeded the company’s internal forecasts. Some industry analysts were worried the fitness-centric watch would compare poorly to Apple ‘s ( AAPL ) more capable, yet pricier, Apple Watch. Since its launch, Fitbit Blaze has been the No. 1 best-selling device in the smartwatch and heart-monitor categories on Amazon.com ( AMZN ). Fitbit Alta also is currently one of the top-selling devices in the fitness tracker and pedometer categories on Amazon. “At Fitbit, we continue to focus on developing innovative and motivating fitness-first products that our customers love and that help them achieve their health and fitness goals,” Woody Scal, chief business officer at Fitbit, said in a statement . “The positive response we’ve received to Blaze and Alta demonstrates our continued ability to innovate and drive strong demand for Fitbit products, which is what has made and kept us the leader in the global wearables category.” The Fitbit Blaze costs $199.95. Last week, Apple cut the starting price for its Apple Watch to $299 from $349. The Fitbit Alta costs $129.95. It competes with fitness trackers from Garmin ( GRMN ), Jawbone, Microsoft ( MSFT ) and others.

How Google Hands Free App Could Disrupt In-Store Payments

If Google and its Hands Free payments app can achieve a critical mass of brick-and-mortar stores, other digital wallet companies and payments processors could find themselves facing tougher competition — at least, based on my test of the app. Hands Free is designed to eliminate the need to pull out a smartphone and tap it on a point-of-sale system when paying with Android Pay. It uses a combination of your initials, phone and picture to complete each transaction. And it works. Well. Google, which is a unit of Alphabet ( GOOGL ), rolled out Hands Free in March to at least 15 businesses with locations around the South San Francisco Bay Area. Since IBD’s Silicon Valley bureau is located near several, I decided to test the idea of ordering and paying for something with only my voice — part of the future we’ve been promised. After taking a selfie — a photo is required to use the Hands Free app — on my Nexus 5X phone, I headed to a nearby McDonald’s ( MCD ), one of the chains participating in the pilot program. A colleague in the newsroom wanted a Diet Coke, and I was happy to oblige. Phone in my pocket, I walked up to the cash register, placed my order for a medium Diet Coke and then uttered the phrase “Can I pay with Google?” The cashier skipped a beat and replied, “Of course you can! Initials?” I replied with mine. “M.C. Hammer!” she said, and pressed a few more buttons on the register. “Wearing a hat today, I see,” she said, studying my hatless selfie on the register. And then she handed the beverage over with a receipt (I got an emailed receipt as well). Neither my phone nor wallet ever left my pockets. My order was small and the test limited, but it’s clear that the implications could be far-reaching if consumers take to the idea. If Hands Free were available widely, I would certainly use it — paying with just your voice is incredibly easy (and cool, too). At its core, Hands Free takes a swing at a big issue in payments (and e-commerce in general): how to make checkout as frictionless as possible. PayPal ( PYPL ) and its most recent endeavor on that front, One Touch , also attacks the friction problem. Apple ( AAPL ) Pay and rival Android Pay are also trying to innovate around the friction Silicon Valley perceives in paying with cash, a credit card or a mobile phone. With Google running a relatively small pilot program, it’s hard to say at this early stage what impact Hands Free will have on its digital wallet. I doubt that being able to pay with Hands Free would alter where I go to buy things, but it just might be enough to convince me to pick Android Pay over its competitors.