Apple and Nike Team up for iPod Shoe Interface

lyonsden writes "Apple and Nike are teaming up to provide runners a system to integrate their shoes and their iPod. A $30 antenna will connect an iPod nano with special shoes to provide pedometer functions."

Integration

[AAeyers]

This must be part of the wireless patents Apple filed for a while back. I would not at all be surprised if this idea of wireless integration gets incorporated into more and more things. Imagine if you could carry your ipod with you all day and have it work automatically with your home stereo, shoes, car, etc. The ipod could become much more than an mp3 player, and could help collect data (pedometer, etc) and stream music to different sources automatically.

This seems like exactly the thing Jobs and Apple would pursue, a seamless system of wireless integration would perfectly embody their philosophies of style, power, simplicity, and having things 'just work'. It may be just a new shoe accessory right now, but I for one could see this type of technology evolving into new areas

Inaccurate, not useful to serious athletes

[MBraynard]

Pedometers do not cut it for distance measurement. Almost everyone uses a GPS unit these days. Interestingly enough, the only company still pushing a pedometer-driven system these days is Nike. At SOME point they are going to get on the GPS bandwagon but I'm uncertain why they are taking so long to get 'cutting edge in this area.'

OT - That banner ad for Crystal Reports just brought my computer to a crawl.

Apple does no evil...

[Anonymous Coward]

...by linking up with one of the most evil corporations on the face of the earth, the manufacturers of the jackboot in the uniform of globalisation.

Nah, I think it's a pretty shrewd move.

[DwarfGoanna]

On both their parts. While joggers might not be a huge percentage of total mp3 player sales, I'd bet almost everyone who jogs anymore either has or plans to buy one. Apple may have just swallowed them all up. The data tracking function is probably a much bigger deal to those types than lardasses like er.. us realize. Nike gets to sell people another pair of overpriced shoes (probably moreso than usual) and horn in on Apple's brand recognition. Nike might be big in the shoe racket, but those Nike branded Phillips players didn't exactly take the world by storm.

Sync Capabilities

[AgentOJ]

Looking at the links on Apple's site, it shows that the run data can also be synced with your computer once you get back from the run. The data includes stuff like speed, distance, calories burned, etc, so you can see your progress over a length of time. As a former cross country and track runner, this is the kind of information that we had to calculate manually (well, at least record the numbers and then crunch them) to get an overall view of our progress and goals. Also, it would be cool to have since I'd already be bringing my iPod on a run, and wouldn't need to bring a seperate electronic pedometer along (and I'd be willing to be the electronic pedometers out there that track the same information and sync with a computer don't work with Macs).

Re:Nike+Apple=???

[DeadPrez]

You should have just changed your name to "child_labor" as that would be a more formal description.

Re:Nike+Apple=???

[johndierks]

I actually played with that site a few years back to see which terms were acceptable and which weren't, and it appeared that the word 'labor' was not allowed. Strange considering 'labor' is a fitting term to what one might do in running shoes.

Re:Price too low, where is the catch?

[guidryp]

The only ones I see.

The sensor is meant to integrate in Nike shoes.
The sensor doesn't have changeable batteries.

I am sure you can figure out some way to attach to non nikes, unless I read this wrong and ceartian shoes come with embeded sensor.

Batter is a concern until they tell us how long it lasts. If three years then what the heck...

Re:Nike+Apple=???

[f0dder]

It's not like the natives had jobs before the companies came in. Over time what happens is the sweat shop given the right infrastructure, the people become self reliant and form their own companies. Wasn't japan, korea, taiwan once sweatshop to american companies. Now they kick our collective arses in electronics, automobiles & other industries. it's not all the gloom & doom antiglobalization zealot makes it out to be.

Re:Why?

[FLEB]

Who needs headphones? Duck tape, portable speakers...

Re:Nike+Apple=???

[Aadain2001]

Sure, in this country $2 a day is impossible to live on, especially for a family. But in OTHER countries $2 has the equivalent buying power for hundreds of $ a day. This is one of the biggest short comings of protesters in America: not every place on the planet has the same level of inflation or equivalent prices for food/objects as in the US. Do some research, find out how much the average livable wage in a country is before condeming a company for paying their employees those wages.

Re:Nike+Apple=???

[Rude-Boy]

Most informed people who complain about sweatshops aren't complaining about what we might consider low wages. Rather, they are complaining about the long hours and poor working conditions. Just because these jobs might be better then the alternatives doesn't absolve the company of the moral responsiblity not to work these people like slaves just because it's "better then what they had before".

If these companies paid a fair wage and provided good working conditions, you would see very few people complaining.

Re:Sweatshops are good. Really.

[Scudsucker]

Privileged, overfed and sheltered children of developed nations may forget this, but at one time in their not-to-distant past, their nation used to be filled with jobs just like the ones in the sweatshop. And eventually, wealth grew and working conditions got better.

Because workers unionized and forced employeers to offer better wages and working conditions. Kinda contradicts your whole "sweatshops are good" shtick.

Re:Sweatshops are good. Really.

[famebait]

Of course, you never see any of the workers or potential workers in those countries complaining, and there's a reason for that: Nike and other "sweatshop" owners provided far better jobs than were normally available to people in those countries. People FOUGHT to get a spot in one of those factories.

Aren't you skipping the part about if you complain, you're out, and if you try to organize complaints, you're possibly even dead.

Re:Sweatshops are good. Really.

[Rude-Boy]

Obviously you can't read, so I'll just say this again:

Just because these jobs might be better then the alternatives doesn't absolve the company of the moral responsiblity not to work these people like slaves just because it's "better then what they had before".

Read it slowly if you are having trouble understanding.

"There is no easy shortcut between being a developing nation with a subsistence agricultural economy and an information age economy. If the rise of the Asian economies in the 1980s-1990s proved one thing, it's that each and every one has to go through the same growing pains that the United States and Europe once went through. And sweatshops are a step along the way."

The first part may be true, but the poor working conditions these people are forced to endure is not neccessary step. I'm not against companies placing factories in developing nations and I do recognise the good they do for the economy. But just because people in the US and Europe went through a working in similar conditions doesn't mean we can't enforce something better now. If $2 a day is a good local wage, that's fine by me. 16 hour days, 6-7 days a week and unsafe working conditions? NOT ACCEPTABLE.