Apple and Nike team up for ‘stylish’ wearable computing devices

Earlier this year Nike disbanded development team that created Nike+ FuelBand smart-band, which naturally caused questions whether the company plans to continue development of wearable computing devices. Officially, the company remains quiet about its plans for the future, but its chief executive officer implied that Nike could team up with Apple about making certain wearable devices.

“As I look ahead on what is possible between Nike and Apple, technologically we can do things together that we couldn’t do independently,” said Mark Parker, chief executive officer of Nike, in an interview with Bloomberg, reports The Guardian. “So yeah, that’s part of our plan, to expand the whole digital frontier in terms of wearables, and go from what we say is tens of millions of users – right now there’s 25 million Nike+ users – to hundreds of millions.”

Modern wearable computing devices, such as smart-watches or smart-bands are not really stylish. They hardly match clothes and in many cases they “conflict” with already used devices, such as watches or glasses. As a result, the market of wearables today is somewhat limited to various fans of technology and enthusiasts.

Wearable computing devices will get more popular when they become smaller, smarter and more stylish, according to the CEO of Nike.

“I think it’s going to be a big part of the future, absolutely,” said Mr. Parker. “I think the form it takes is critical. You can go from the very geeky kind of wearables today – we’ve all seen some of those – to what I think you’ll see in the future, things that are more stealth, more integrated, more stylish and more functional, yes.”

The head of Nike did not reveal any actual plans, but earlier this year Mark Parker said that his company would concentrate on software only when it comes to digital things. As it appears, the plan has changed a bit and Nike now plans to release certain kinds of high-tech products.

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KitGuru Says: It will be interesting to see what Apple and Nike partnership will bring to the market. What do you, guys, expect?

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