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Fitbit is now officially part of Google

blog.fitbit.com

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Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#291

Post by gretch »

IgorPartola wrote: post #282
gretch wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-advertising/apple-c... Apple makes 2 billion a year on advertising projected to go up to 11 billion in 5 years. While a fraction of total rev, I don’t think it’s correct to round off 2 billion and say they are somehow not an advertising company as well. (You don’t have to be just 1 type of company)

DuckDuckGo makes 100% of its revenue from advertising. How you advertise matters, no?

That’s exactly my point. Put DDG into your original post. It refutes your own argument which was based solely on how google is an ads company and Apple is a hardware company.

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#292

Post by physicles »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #109
Grazester wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my biggest concern, not even the data. Google locks your account and your entire life is disrupted!

I considered going to China, but decided against because of my reliance on Google services.

Really? For just that reason? I live and work full time in China and we use G Suite and Slack with a good VPN (there are some similar Chinese services but none are nearly as good).

Sometimes I can’t watch a YouTube link if I’m away from home and the VPN isn’t working on 4G, but that’s as bad as it ever gets these days.

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#293

Post by cratermoon »

xsmasher wrote: post #272
cratermoon wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/citizen-coup... "Imagine there was no such thing as a library, and that members of the current neoliberal policy consensus were to sit down today and invent it. They might create complicated tax expenditures to subsidize the poor purchasing and reselling books, like the wage support of the earned income tax credit. They might require people to rent books from approved p…

If someone invented the concept of a library today wouldn't it sound, you know, kinda socialist?

Oh, very.

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#294

Post by spaetzleesser »

29083011397778 wrote: post #248
wlesieutre wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They nailed the Nexus 7, but that was a while ago (2012 and 2013) EDIT - never mind, Asus made both of those

Were you thinking of the 2012 Nexus 7 with the poor-quality NAND that went bad within a couple years, rendering the tablet useless? Or the 2013 that had phantom/unregistering input due to (IIRC) general build-quality and flex issues? Asus did make both, but I'm not sure either was as good as you recall, sadly.

The Nexus 7 was way ahead of the competition at the time. It was fast, had a great display and cheap. I used mine for 6 years before it stopped working. Unfortunately google didn’t build on its success.

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#296

Post by cush »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #276
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Five or six years ago, I would have said, "Great! Now my Fitbit will be better integrated with Android and my Google ecosystem. Plus it will inject some much needed stability into a faltering company, to bolster the quality and advance their products. Yay!" Now I think about the fact that I just looked someone up on contacts.google.com, then added a visit with them to calendar.google.com, and talked with them about i…

Like Pebble, who was first bought by Fitbit and now Google?

A 5 year old Pebble time steel is still better than anything Fitbit has made

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#297

Post by KMag »

chaostheory wrote: post #281
csours wrote: post #251

If someone from Fitbit is reading this: It is asinine that the data from my wearable has to go to my phone, up to the cloud, and back down to my phone for display.

It is not 'asinine' if you're worried about cost, size, and weight. An all in one device is going to be larger, heavier, and cost more than device that relies on a smart phone.

The GP is complaining about the phone -> server -> phone data path of the wearable -> phone -> server -> phone workflow for generating a nice graph. Presumably they think uploading the data to the server should be optional for backup/social purposes and not a part of just viewing the collected data.

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#298

Post by cush »

post_break wrote: post #168

Whenever I think of Fitbit I think of Pebble and get sad. I wish there was a Pebble replacement.

So true. All Fitbit did after the acquisition was shelve all of Pebble's tech. Pebble, to this day, still has the best smart watch screen. Those refresh rates were crazy.

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#299

Post by Marsymars »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #158
eins1234 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really though, how long do we expect that arrangement to last? The Facebook WhatsApp thing makes it pretty clear to me that they can afford to walk back on that arrangement as soon as they feel they can afford to take the PR hit. For something with as small of a market share as Fitbit, I suspect that won't take very long at all.

Google/Fitbit has a legally-binding commitment for ten years. However, there are probably ways they can leap around that. For instance, new devices and a new platform, using the Fitbit talent and technology, but marketed as a new thing, could probably be used for advertising. Then they just need to get everyone over to their new health platform. I also think a ten year commitment is a very poor concession for the EU…

> I also think a ten year commitment is a very poor concession for the EU to have extracted: It just means they're punting off society being harmed a while. For a company that will likely be around in 100 years or more, IBM-style, that's not a good concession.

I agree, but if they were in the business of extracting significant pro-consumer concessions, I can see some weird incentives building up: imagine a dystopian future in several decades where the only semi-pro-consumer companies are the goliaths that have decades’ worth of accumulated concessions, and consumer startups nearly-universally act in their own financial interest, making them unusable for people who care about their data/privacy/ads/etc., and regulators who are unwilling to burden startups with regulations that restrict them from competing with AmaGoogleFlix.

Re: Fitbit is now officially part of Google

#300

Post by taneq »

csours wrote: post #251

If someone from Fitbit is reading this: It is asinine that the data from my wearable has to go to my phone, up to the cloud, and back down to my phone for display.

This was my major beef with Pebble... which was purchased by FitBit... which is now owned by Google, meaning all that Pebble data is now Google's.
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