Two Birds, One Pebble
Putting aside all of the resounding praise that Pebble has enjoyed over the years, both as a kickstarter darling and a scrappy upstart taking on the likes of Google and Apple, Pebble has a great product. However it is not simply their products that make them great, they are a great team that seems to understand their position in the market better than most.
The Pebble team hasn’t been trying too hard to one-up the competition, they’ve almost always been ahead. They were first to get normals somewhat interested in smartwatches, and have continued to be a leading force. Some have already panned the design of the new Pebble Time, and I’ll admit it isn’t quite as eye-catching as some of the flashier (smart)watches out there, but it is moving the needle forward, and we get color…and Nyan Cat! From the hand’s on demonstrations it looks worlds better than any other attempts at low-power color screens.
Pebble has an amazing ability to continue to add value to their platform without sacrificing the positive features, such as battery life, ease of use, etc. Each update has added fairly significant changes: javascript enabled apps, activity tracking, quick shortcuts, background app updates, to name a few.
Pebble hasn’t said when, but they have indicated that the new Timeline feature will be backported to existing Pebble watches, this is great news! Supporting their existing customer and developer base is one of the reason we Pebble users are so passionate.
Pebble get’s community.
One of the things Pebble has that others do not is a passionate developer community, sure there are rabid fans of both Apple and Google, however they are such large companies it makes it difficult to connect and reach out to individual developers in a meaningful way. If you need help writing an app, reach out to the wonderful community on Pebble Forums and you will get the help you need, either from a fellow dev or someone directly from the Pebble team. Pebble is engaged with their community in many cases hiring people that have built things on or around their platform. You could argue that Pebble has to do this because of their size, but I feel that they want to do this, this is one of their competitive advantages, hire the people that are making your product better without getting paid for it.
Can a small Pebble take out 2 giants?
Pebble is here to stay. They may not sell as many as many watches in a day as Apple inevitably will in the coming months. They may not have as many options as Google does with Android Wear. At the end of the day when your Pebble is still going strong for the rest of the week, and Pebble has cemented it’s way in your life as a tool that helps you live your life more comfortably you’ll be happy you chose Pebble.
