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Under Armour dumped an app

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Re: Under Armour dumped an app

#41

Post by ISL »

nradov wrote: post #35
762236 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is tough. One of the nice things about the Garmin universe is that they have a foundation of open standards that help with interoperability and forward continuity if parts of that universe close. The FIT file format is open. The ANT+ protocol is open I believe, but devices can also use BLE which is open. If I preserve all of my FIT files, and Strava decided to close down, I could upload them all to Training Peaks…

The ANT+ protocol and FIT file format are sort of open. They are well documented and available to everyone. Multiple independent companies do contribute. But ultimately they are controlled by Garmin; they aren't true open standards like WiFi, TCP/IP, or HTML. https://www.thisisant.com/

Agreed. When I have tried to work with it [1], the format has been anything but open. It's been a mixture of other people's libraries and reverse-engineering to make Garmin files work for my needs.

There is an SDK with a license agreement that is probably more descriptive, but the license terms are not what one expects from measurement instrumentation.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15825838

Re: Under Armour dumped an app

#42

Post by jfengel »

rconti wrote: post #34
chrisBob wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shoes of the winning marathoners tells you what brand is sponsoring the runners. The sponsorship has a tremendous impact on who wins major races. The shoes don't have that much of an impact.

Wrong. Nikes have been a straight up sensation the past couple of years, and in particular the past 6 months. Go to any race. The field is STACKED with people running vaporflys. I see it at our running club. People are suddenly paying their own money to buy the same Nike shoe, when in the past people used kind of whatever they preferred. Tune in to the olympic marathon trials February 29. I bet the vast majority of t…

And not just because they're being paid to. They're setting records. Records are falling unusually fast, and by substantial margins.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-athletics-shoe-factbox/fa...

Re: Under Armour dumped an app

#43

Post by robertjfclarke »

nradov wrote: post #24

It's just really tough to compete in the fitness tech market. The total addressable market size isn't huge. And over the last few years Garmin has thrown tremendous resources into it and launched so many new products that smaller competitors were squeezed out. Wahoo, Suunto, Coros, and Polar are still hanging on with small market shares in devices and Strava may survive as an independent app. Nike tried and gave up.…

It's not entirely accurate to say that Nike gave up on apps. They still maintain a core shopping app, Strava competitor and one or two other niches: https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/nike-inc/id301521406#see...

Re: Under Armour dumped an app

#44

Post by braythwayt »

nradov wrote: post #24

It's just really tough to compete in the fitness tech market. The total addressable market size isn't huge. And over the last few years Garmin has thrown tremendous resources into it and launched so many new products that smaller competitors were squeezed out. Wahoo, Suunto, Coros, and Polar are still hanging on with small market shares in devices and Strava may survive as an independent app. Nike tried and gave up.…

Not to mention how much of that market is being bled off by Apple. Obviously, specialty tools are always going to have a market. But companies like Apple are going to capture more and more of the “mainstream” market with their own fitness offerings.

Re: Under Armour dumped an app

#46

Post by awad »

gknoy wrote: post #26
dadarepublic wrote: post #20

Sneakerhead here. This is tangental but related. The core of Under Armor's problem is design. The market is simply not excited by UA's offerings. This cascades throughout their ecosystem - this app included. UA sells shoes, no question. Just not to sneakerheads. Think of it this way, I remember as web engineer, when engineers were installing Chrome on family members computers to get them off the built-in browser. Chr…

I hope you'll forgive my ignorance, but what do you (as a "sneakerhead") look for in shoe design? Is this a matter of visual aethetics, or of performance/support metrics? I buy shoes relatively rarely, and usually end up getting something similar to what I had before, so I feel like I have no idea what "good design" even means in a shoe, any more than I would consider design of a screwdriver. Obviously, such good des…

It's not necessarily one or the other but definitely skews towards the aesthetics/fashion element. That said, the best designed sneakers often rank highly on both of those dimensions. Another poster mentioned Nike's rise in running shoes. They're highly functional, often the best in the game, but also designed with enough attention to aesthetics to be seen on the foot of many executives in their day to day lives. That's good design.

To the gp's point, the single pair of UA sneakers I own are highly functional and sport-specific that only come out at the gym...but picking them out of a crowd of UA's lineup is difficult.

Re: Under Armour dumped an app

#47

Post by dole »

awad wrote: post #46
gknoy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you'll forgive my ignorance, but what do you (as a "sneakerhead") look for in shoe design? Is this a matter of visual aethetics, or of performance/support metrics? I buy shoes relatively rarely, and usually end up getting something similar to what I had before, so I feel like I have no idea what "good design" even means in a shoe, any more than I would consider design of a screwdriver. Obviously, such good des…

It's not necessarily one or the other but definitely skews towards the aesthetics/fashion element. That said, the best designed sneakers often rank highly on both of those dimensions. Another poster mentioned Nike's rise in running shoes. They're highly functional, often the best in the game, but also designed with enough attention to aesthetics to be seen on the foot of many executives in their day to day lives. Tha…

To sneakerheads, fashion and aesthestics value far more than function and performance. Sneakerheads being a [large] subset of the current streetwear trend, exclusivity is another major factor for inflated prices in streetwear and sneakers.

Timed and location specific drops of exclusive, limited edition, special colorway variants of shoes, clothes and all other types of popular gear raises value. As mentioned, StockX majorly drives the market, and the exclusivity leads the savvy (or obsessed) consumer to seek advantages over others: bots, bulk buying, captcha solving, DDoSing, proxies, and the usual exploits are employed. The prices and value may be ridiculous but obviously, it's worth it to someone and there's lots of money to be made.

Re: Under Armour dumped an app

#48

Post by dadarepublic »

gknoy wrote: post #26
dadarepublic wrote: post #20

Sneakerhead here. This is tangental but related. The core of Under Armor's problem is design. The market is simply not excited by UA's offerings. This cascades throughout their ecosystem - this app included. UA sells shoes, no question. Just not to sneakerheads. Think of it this way, I remember as web engineer, when engineers were installing Chrome on family members computers to get them off the built-in browser. Chr…

I hope you'll forgive my ignorance, but what do you (as a "sneakerhead") look for in shoe design? Is this a matter of visual aethetics, or of performance/support metrics? I buy shoes relatively rarely, and usually end up getting something similar to what I had before, so I feel like I have no idea what "good design" even means in a shoe, any more than I would consider design of a screwdriver. Obviously, such good des…

A very broad answer to your query... sneakerheads run the gamut in terms of what they might look for or why they might want a shoe. A sneakerhead may want to have a shoe in their collection but never rock (wear) them, another shoe might be a grail that is worn infrequently or for special occasions, and yet another shoe might become a "beater" - a shoe you love to wear and wear it til it's in tatters.

In my collection I have all three types. Some sneakerheads are into collecting only the most valuable shoes in terms of reselling (this is not me).

Even for my utilitarian shoes/boots I obsess over details such as construction, comfort, and craft/style. It's why I'm a fan of some limited Redwing & Nick's Handmade boots and not something you can just pick up at your local big box store.

What I consider a great shoe design, another sneakerhead might think is trash. Some sneakerheads only collect specific types/brands. For me it's usually a combination of style/design, quality of materials, and comfort. If a shoe isn't comfortable I won't wear it and if it's valuable in the aftermarket I'll probably sell it for profit at some point - unless it's a pure work of art in which case I'll keep it indefinitely. Yes there are shoes like that (for me).

But there are trends - shoes that a great many people find "exciting" or good design for various reasons. As I mentioned in my original comment, there are reselling marketplaces such as StockX (stockx.com) that track trends and display the value sneakers - the value can be dictated by a combination of factors such as design/style, materials and rarity with a peppering of comfort & utility.

I totally get that some people just want a shoe to be a shoe and don't care much about style/design. I just happen not to be one of those people.

Re: Under Armour dumped an app

#49

Post by dadarepublic »

awad wrote: post #46
gknoy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you'll forgive my ignorance, but what do you (as a "sneakerhead") look for in shoe design? Is this a matter of visual aethetics, or of performance/support metrics? I buy shoes relatively rarely, and usually end up getting something similar to what I had before, so I feel like I have no idea what "good design" even means in a shoe, any more than I would consider design of a screwdriver. Obviously, such good des…

It's not necessarily one or the other but definitely skews towards the aesthetics/fashion element. That said, the best designed sneakers often rank highly on both of those dimensions. Another poster mentioned Nike's rise in running shoes. They're highly functional, often the best in the game, but also designed with enough attention to aesthetics to be seen on the foot of many executives in their day to day lives. Tha…

> To the gp's point, the single pair of UA sneakers I own are highly functional and sport-specific that only come out at the gym...but picking them out of a crowd of UA's lineup is difficult.

A very good summary. UA just doesn't have whatever it is that influencers, fashionistas, artists, and designers are looking for - which is mostly style/design/hype attached to good materials, exclusivity and comfort.

It's how great design translates into good brand marketing (read: hype) - UA isn't it.

Re: Under Armour dumped an app

#50

Post by sm4rk0 »

For curious, this is the actual news from the title:

The company quietly pulled its UA Record app from both Google Play and Apple's App Store on New Year's Eve. In an announcement dated sometime around January 8, Under Armour said that not only has the app been removed from all app stores, but the company is no longer providing customer support or bug fixes for the software, which will completely stop working as of March 31.

Source:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/01/smart...

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