Why we created the iBike Dash the way we did
Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 7:10 am
I thought a bit of background on the iBike Dash might be helpful.
We started this project last fall, following Apple's announcement of its OS3 for iPhone and iPod Touch. With OS3, we realized we could transform the iPhone/iPod Touch into a mobile computer with GPS, phone, color display, all of which could work seamlessly with our electronics and an iBike app. We believe that the market for a bike computer and power meter with these features capabilities is enormous.
We picked Apple because there is an extremely large installed base of similarly-sized products with an identical connector interface. There are nearly 100 million iPhones and iPod Touches out there, meaning that a (single) clever design of the of the Phone Booth could fit all of those devices...
The current problem with Android products is that they have significantly different shapes and there isn't any standard connector for them, in any standard location. This makes it difficult to design for the Android platform and makes the investment risk much higher. We will watch the Android market carefully and if a large-volume design emerges we will be very happy and will respond accordingly.
The iBike Dash was designed in the USA and will be manufactured here. Despite all the problems that are constantly in the news, I can tell you that there are still a ton of extremely talented, hard working, and results oriented people who work in the USA. We are very fortunate to have some of them on our team, and what they have accomplished is amazing.
There is so much that can be done with the iBike Dash that it is almost mind boggling, so this is just the first step.
And we fully expect to migrate some of our key innovations across our entire product line. Stay tuned...
We started this project last fall, following Apple's announcement of its OS3 for iPhone and iPod Touch. With OS3, we realized we could transform the iPhone/iPod Touch into a mobile computer with GPS, phone, color display, all of which could work seamlessly with our electronics and an iBike app. We believe that the market for a bike computer and power meter with these features capabilities is enormous.
We picked Apple because there is an extremely large installed base of similarly-sized products with an identical connector interface. There are nearly 100 million iPhones and iPod Touches out there, meaning that a (single) clever design of the of the Phone Booth could fit all of those devices...
The current problem with Android products is that they have significantly different shapes and there isn't any standard connector for them, in any standard location. This makes it difficult to design for the Android platform and makes the investment risk much higher. We will watch the Android market carefully and if a large-volume design emerges we will be very happy and will respond accordingly.
The iBike Dash was designed in the USA and will be manufactured here. Despite all the problems that are constantly in the news, I can tell you that there are still a ton of extremely talented, hard working, and results oriented people who work in the USA. We are very fortunate to have some of them on our team, and what they have accomplished is amazing.
There is so much that can be done with the iBike Dash that it is almost mind boggling, so this is just the first step.
And we fully expect to migrate some of our key innovations across our entire product line. Stay tuned...