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Google open-sources the Pebble OS

opensource.googleblog.com

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Re: Google open-sources the Pebble OS

#91

Post by talldayo »

andybak wrote: post #69

This, Google Wave, Tilt Brush (and more recently Blocks). And probably others I've forgotten. This really does help mitigate the damage done by "Killed by Google" and people are genuinely grateful (personally in my case). But even better would be to fix the dysfunctional internal dynamics that cause this syndrome in what appears to be disproportionally more frequently compared to other corporations.

Eh, I take a much more "gloves off" approach to this mentality. If you bought an Airport thinking that it would be your forever router, you're a moron. Same goes for buying an eero, or Google Home, or even an iPad at this point. You don't own this hardware, you control nothing about it. The idea that products live forever is a bedtime story we tell ourselves, an utter fairytale of the software industry.

Everyone kills software products. The problem is our attitude of entitlement towards things we sign an EULA to use. You "own" TikTok on the App Store? Pssh, please. You don't even own the software runtime you use TikTok with.

Re: Google open-sources the Pebble OS

#92

Post by doctorpangloss »

erohead wrote: post #14

Thank you, Google. You didn't have to, but you did. We are all are extraordinarily grateful. I wrote a blog post about our plans to bring Pebble back, sustainably. https://ericmigi.com/blog/why-were-bringing-pebble-back We got our original start on HN ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3827868 ), it's a pleasure to be back. If you're interested in getting a new Pebble, check out https://rePebble.com

There is apparently huge amounts of goodwill for Pebble!

But. Isn’t most of the value of a codebase like this not the code itself, but all the knowledge of the people who worked on it day to day? Where are they?

It’s really intriguing. People who have a lot of goodwill towards Pebble BELIEVE the source code is valuable. That doesn’t mean that it is.

Re: Google open-sources the Pebble OS

#93

Post by nialv7 »

elevatedastalt wrote: post #84

People passing cynical comments at Google need to understand that at a big co like Google, something like this doesn't 'just happen'. It probably happened because some passionate L6/L7 engineer wanted to do it and pushed through the bureaucracy to get approvals for it, probably largely on their own time (by which I mean that this was at best a side-project for them and at worst a distraction that was losing them favo…

I do wonder how they successfully justified this to the higher ups. If anything, I would like to learn from them so I can better justify the things I want to do..

Re: Google open-sources the Pebble OS

#94

Post by frosting1337 »

jayde2767 wrote: post #89
elevatedastalt wrote: post #84

People passing cynical comments at Google need to understand that at a big co like Google, something like this doesn't 'just happen'. It probably happened because some passionate L6/L7 engineer wanted to do it and pushed through the bureaucracy to get approvals for it, probably largely on their own time (by which I mean that this was at best a side-project for them and at worst a distraction that was losing them favo…

Maybe...the cynic in me says that someone feels this needs to be preserved because it will become another Google relic in favor of something newer, or more shiny. Or likely something written in Go...just a guess on my part...

What do you mean? Pebble was dead before Google ever bought Fitbit.

Re: Google open-sources the Pebble OS

#95

Post by nialv7 »

Good for them, but also, what a colossal waste. Fitbit brought Pebble, Google brought Fitbit. They had everything to make a better version of a product that people _loved_, that _I_ loved. And what had them done? Nothing but a blatant display of anticompetitive power. (Yes I am still mad, 8 years later)

Re: Google open-sources the Pebble OS

#96

Post by f_allwein »

coldpie wrote: post #51
rpmisms wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be a great hardware duo. Neo-pebble and Mini-nexus.

Hmm, maybe we can come at this from the other angle. We can't have small phones because bigger is always better, right? So how about a HUGE 5" screen smartwatch that just happens to be a perfectly functional standalone phone if you discard the wristband?? Instant best seller!

Something like this? https://thetinypod.com/

Re: Google open-sources the Pebble OS

#97

Post by Avamander »

tadfisher wrote: post #73
_2d30 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pebble went bankrupt because no one bought their products. Their assets were acquired by Fitbit. Fitbit did not continue to produce the Pebble products for which there was very limited demand. Google then later acquired Fitbit.

They sold 2 million units, which is nothing to sneeze at for a Kickstarter-funded project. What they miscalculated was the demand for the Pebble Time, for which they spent too much money on R&D and marketing to justify the results. They should have iterated on the original design, making it cheaper, smaller, and longer-lasting. Instead they tried to go upmarket and compete with the Apple Watch, with predictable resul…

Eric has described in-depth what went wrong: https://ericmigi.com/blog/success-and-failure-at-pebble
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