Well, this took long enough, don’tcha think? Ever since the original Jawbone Up fitness tracker came out, we’ve been saying it needs an Android app so you can use it with more than just an iDevice. Heck, even when the redesigned second-gen version went on sale last year, it was still for iOS only. Finally, though, that Android app is here, and it’s ready to download in the Google Play store.
Like the iOS version it’s free, and can be used to log daily meals, as well as view pretty charts illustrating your various sleep and activity patterns. You’ll also notice some strong similarities in the UI, though the iOS version has a few features the Android software doesn’t have yet, such as the ability to share things on Twitter and Facebook. The band, too, is the same as ever, which means you can use it with a mix of iOS and Android devices, if you so choose. Finally, there’s one last (very big) group of people who will be getting to try the Up for the first time: the wristband is now for sale in Europe, with Asia, Australia and the Middle East to follow next month.
Update: The second-generation Up is now available in the UK priced at £99 — you’ll be able to grab one at Apple and Carphone Warehouse stores, alongside Jawbone’s own site.
Today the Android app for the device known as Jawbone UP is available for the first time. Before now, the Jawbone device was only able to connect to iOS devices – notably the iPhone – but you’ll now be able to work with any and all current Android devices, Samsung to HTC, Motorola, LG, and back again. This move will expand the Jawbone UP universe vastly, with millions of Android users joining the big Google mobile party daily.
With the release of the UP app for Android you’ll find massive amounts of new users joining the Jawbone UP community, this push joining up with added availability for the device across the planet. Jawbone has also announced that UP will be available in Europe this month, with Asia, Australia, and parts of the Middle East coming up for availability next month.
If you download the Android app today, you’ll have only to purchase the actual Jawbone UP device from your favorite retailer or straight from Jawbone itself online. This device will cost you $129 USD or comparable amounts of cash depending on where you live. If you’re all about getting in on the party with a preview before you head out to grab the device for yourself, you’ll want to see our extended coverage, of course!
Have a peek at the timeline below for every bit of Jawbone UP action you could possibly need, including our own hands-on experiences. And be sure to hit up the SlashGear Jawbone tag portal for more Jawbone action through the future, too!
It certainly didn’t happen as quickly as some would have liked but Jawbone is finally releasing an Android app to accompany its UP band. So if you’ve been itching to try the UP activity tracker but don’t have an iOS device to actually use the thing, well, now you can. The following devices are supported in the US: More »
“I have a tip that can take five strokes off anyone’s golf game: It’s called an eraser,” Arnold Palmer once remarked. Yes, Even brave enough to wear ridiculous clothes and hack a small white ball around a manicured lawn, golf is a difficult and sometimes humiliating, sport.
Luckily for golfers, John McGuire feels your pain and is on a mission to make the game just a little less painful for anyone daring (and ignorant) enough to pick up a club. His new company, Active Mind Technology, wants to give the golfing masses access to the same tools traditionally reserved for the pros by leveraging the same wearable sensor-based technologies found in health-tracking devices like Fitbit, Basis and Jawbone’s Up.
And who better to assist in that endeavor than the mastermind behind the design of products like Jambox, Jawbone and Jawbone Up? Joining McGuire and his team of twenty is Yves Behar, the design and branding guru (and Chief Creative Officer of Jawbone) known for helping to design the products mentioned above as well as those for PUMA, General Electric, Samsung, Prada and more.
While Behar hasn’t assumed a title in the company, McGuire tells us that he has not only led the design of the UI, UX, branding and packaging of Active Mind’s newest product, he’s also and investor and “thankfully, even acts like a founder,” he says.
This week, McGuire, Behar and team officially unveiled Game Golf, a wearable product that employs a combination of sensors, GPS and NFC technologies to provide golfers with a stream of data and feedback to help them improve their scores.
Essentially, the device, which includes transmitter tags that are inserted into clubs and a receiver that can be attached to your belt, track every shot a user takes during a round, as well as distance, club selection and so on. And, a la health and fitness trackers, Game Golf compiles this data and syncs it with the cloud, allowing users to then access their performance data via its mobile app on their mobile devices and personal computers.
Golfers can then share highlights of their round and their overall progress with friends by way of their social network(s) of choice, and see the percentage of shots that they hit in the fairway, greens in regulation, and putting performance. Backing its software, the team has designed Game Golf’s battery to accomodate two full rounds of data tracking before requiring a charge.
Though that all equates to a good start, one feature that’s conspicuously absent is that the device is not able to measure the velocity of one’s swing (or its relative accuracy). his could deter some early adopters, it’s not a flat-out deal breaker; however, adding this capability down the road could become a significant selling point for those sitting on the fence.
And, unfortunately for those looking for instant gratification, Game Golf isn’t yet available in stores. Instead, the company has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo through which it hopes to raise $125,000 in an effort to finance its product development and distribution. In spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that it will cost a hefty $249 when it does become publicly available in stores, McGuire tells us that Game Golf has become the fastest money-raising campaign in Indiegogo’s history, raising $63K in 12 hours.
Now, two days removed from launch, the campaign has raised over $108,000. At this rate, it should meet its goal within a week, which the founder takes as a promising sign of the potential demand for its golf tracker.
Based on its initial concept and after recruiting well-known pro golfers like Lee Westwood and Graeme McDowell to help with early testing (and invest), Active Mind was able to raise seed financing from a bevy of reputable investors, including Chamath Palihapitiya, Jerry Yang (of AME Cloud Ventures), Morado Venture Partners, Crosslink Capital and Ed Colligan (the Former CEO of Palm) — to name a few.
“Game Golf gives everyone access to crucial data that can dramatically improve your golf game and handicap,” McDowell says of its appeal to golfers. “[It’s] intuitive, doesn’t disrupt your game and is essential for any golfer looking to understand their game better and knock down their handicap.”
With its Indiegogo campaign acting as a proof of concept, the startup is currently in the process of raising what McGuire tells us will be a $4 million series A round. If Game Golf is able to sustain this early demand, it will eventually look to expand into other sports, like board and motor sports and soccer, for example.
While the near-term plan involves serious iterating around Game Golf, McGuire said that the platform is being architected in such a way that it will be able to eventually help users measure activity — and provide a gamification and social layer — across multiple sports.
As to Game Golf, the founder said that users can expect to see its public launch sometime this summer.
Jawbone has announced that a small number of accounts had been compromised by cyber-attacks. The company did not mention how many, but did use the word “limited” to describe the scope of the attack. In any case, some user data (email, password, address) may have been stolen, but Jawbone doesn’t think that more than that was accessed. Note that the password information that was accessed was encrypted, and if Jawbone used a different encryption key for each account, it should be hard (or at least very long) for hackers to do anything at scale with them. (more…)
If you use a Jambox, now might be a real good time to change your MyTalk password: Jawbone’s servers have been hacked, and a swathe of users have had their details swiped. More »
If you have a Jawbone headset and MyTALK account, you may have received an email from the outfit warning that you’ll need to reset your password due to a security compromise in a “limited” number of accounts. The company said it halted the hack after “several hours,” however, and that thieves only stole names, email addresses and encrypted passwords — but no other user information, so far as it can tell. If affected, you’ll need to reset your password by following the instructions (in the PR after the break), and Jawbone also advised you to change it on other sites too, if used elsewhere — never a good practice, incidentally.
Jawbone has notified some users that its MyTALK service has been hacked, with the cloud app and firmware update platform supposedly seeing names, emails, and encrypted passwords raided. The security hack was revealed in an email to registered users today, warning them that “limited user information” had been stolen, though suggesting that there was no sign of any unauthorized use of that login data, or access to account information, that Jawbone could see.
Jawbone launched the MyTALK service back in 2010, alongside the ICON Bluetooth headset, as a way to deliver not only firmware updates to its Bluetooth-enabled products, but add cloud-based services. For instance, Jawbone allows headset users to add number speed-dials to the multifunction button via MyTALK, as well as change the voice of the spoken command prompts.
As a response to the hack, Jawbone has disabled existing passwords and users must reset them if they want to log back into MyTALK. Technical details are yet to be revealed, with the company only saying that it was an “isolated attack on our system.”
Jawbone is keen to point out in its message that the passwords taken were encrypted, and as such the actual passwords themselves weren’t revealed. We’ve got a request in for more information from Jawbone and will update when we know more.
This week the folks at Jawbone have made their UP band a more social device with an update to its iOS app and connectivity with Facebook Open Graph. The Jawbone UP device itself is out on the market now and has been for some time – $129 for a lovely little strap that fits around your wrist and makes you a much more responsible fitness fanatic. This set of updates includes two major pushes for an active lifestyle with Multiple Sleep Alarms and the ease of connecting with your friends on Facebook – like a snap!
The iOS app update is live right this minute for those of you working with a Jawbone UP and an iPhone. This update is free, of course, and includes the two bullet-points we’re having a chat about here, starting with Multiple Sleep Alarms. Where before this week your alarm system was a bit more limited, you’re now able to set up multiple Smart Sleep alarms with 10, 20, and 30 minute custom wakeup windows.
With Facebook Open Graph integration you’ll be able to share your UP events and accomplishments with all of your best Jawbone buddies. Sharing via Facebook includes data from your workout plan and action, sleep schedule, food, drink, and everything in-between. Perhaps most important of all in this situation is the fact that your sharing will be selective – only the items you want to share will be shared, this as Jawbone notes avoiding “clogging up your Timeline” as it were.
The images above and below show how your newly Facebook-friendly Jawbone UP device and iOS app will be working with you through the future. The integration you’re seeing here is all up to you, you choose how much or how little you share or if you share anything at all, and of course you can take the device off your wrist at any time – be free! And make sure you don’t sleep through that Jawbone alarm – consider wrapping it around your ear, perhaps (at your own risk!)
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