The Pebble smartwatch can be considered one of the early successes in the field of smartwatches. From a very successful Kickstarter project, it has now shipped nearly 200,000 units and is coming soon to Canada. Not resting on their laurels, the Pebble team today announced that the Pebble smartwatch is now fully integrated with iOS 7. It also released an updated SDK for development of apps for Android and iOS.
Pebble’s support for iOS 7 brings with it integration with the Notification Center. Any notifications enabled in on your iOS 7 device will now appear on your Pebble as well. Notifications you can choose from include those for calls, texts and emails, Calendar, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Flickr, Dropbox, WhatsApp, Flipboard and more.
As for the new software development kit, Pebble SDK 2.0, it adds four new APIs: Javascript, Accelerometer, Data Logging and Persistent Storage. These will make it easier for developers to build apps that interface directly with the web (real-time weather, transit info, location check-in), access the accelerometer (health/fitness monitoring and gesture-based remote control), log data when disconnected from the phone (health/fitness tracking), and store info on the watch (high scores for games, settings).
Developers also now have access to two chips that had not been turned on previously. Apps can now use the smartwatch’s accelerometer and its Bluetooth low energy (LE) radio which Pebble decided to turn on after confirming that these would not kill the smartwatch’s battery life.
Pebble also shared some numbers about the Pebble ecosystem. Some 2,200 apps and faces are now available on mypebblefaces.com and there have been over 2 million downloads of apps and faces. There are also over 50 companion apps on both the iTunes and Google Play stores.
Source : Pebble Blog