Nike and Apple may be working on a new, more stylish fitness wearable device, although neither company has announced anything, according to The Drum.
In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Nike CEO Mark Parker said that teaming with Apple for the creation of wearables allowed Nike to “do things together that we couldn’t do independently” and that wearables will be “a big part of the future” for his company.
In April, Nike shut down further development of its FuelBand fitness-tracking bracelet, which worked with apps for both iPhones and Android smartphones. Apple and Nike have worked together since 2006, when the companies jointly developed a Nike+ running sensor that connected wirelessly to a user’s iPod.
Parker told Bloomberg that the company’s plan was “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.”
He added, “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.” But it’s not clear whether Parker was hinting hinting at the creation of another FuelBand-type bracelet or something completely different.