Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

Post by krabizzwainch » Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 2:40 PM UTC

tomaskafka wrote: post #42

Defletter wrote: post #20

This is a bit of a what-if, but I had a Pebble watch back then and was considering trying to make an app for it. The idea that, if I had succeeded and published the app, that Rebble would be claiming ownership over my binary and threatening legal action against the original Pebble creator, to be really quite ridiculous and affronting.

I am one of the developers who did make Pebble apps - here's a screenshot with the Pebble version of Weathergraph on Eric's watch: https://x.com/weathergraph/status/1959253197664469246 Today is the day I found out Rebble is claiming the ownership of my app's binaries. All I can say is that they don't have it.

Post by gcr » Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 2:59 PM UTC

pokoleo wrote: post #43

pokoleo wrote: post #9

Summarizing the dispute, for anyone interested: Rebble's "one red line" is "there has to be a future for Rebble in there." They fear being replaced/made irrelevant after Core builds their own infrastructure using Rebble's work. They want guarantees that if they give Core access to the app store data, Core won't build a proprietary/walled garden that cuts Rebble out. There's also emphasis on "our work," "we built this…

They sent an email a few minutes after I posted, saying that their fulfillment centre dropped the ball and they're escalating internally. I guess complaining on HN worked. Hope they can figure out the dispute with Rebble. Maybe they end up hosting apps on a package manager and create some binding contract?

Post by estimator7292 » Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 4:01 PM UTC

notpushkin wrote: post #230

amarant wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems cheap to me. Host anything and you're gonna need developers. Developers are expensive. A hundred thousand dollars is pretty much what you'd pay for a single developer in a year. 5 Devs is still a small team and that's half a million dollars per year.

There are countries other than the US.

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 4:29 PM UTC

neumann wrote: post #204

calgoo wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also a bunch of cancelled order right now, so maybe they suddenly had a surplus of available devices...

Yeah. I bought a black duo out of nostalgia and wanting pebble to succeed, but not interested in the time and realized I don't love them enough to want to wear a white one. Fickle me, I guess.

Post by radlad » Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 5:28 PM UTC

philipwhiuk wrote: post #119

radlad wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're 100% right WRT the open-source code Rebble developed publicly. The big open question right now seems to be about the private app store data Rebble archived (and further developed) - which looks legally murky to me.

But they don’t have any rights to that data. They don’t own redistribution rights for the apps.