Fitbit's efforts to deliver health metrics from a single platform to all devices may have caused the fitness device maker's wearables to be wiped from Apple's online stores, but they remain available in the iPhone maker's brick-and-mortar stores for the time being.
Consumers can still find the Fitbit One and Fitbit Flex offline in Apple stores. With the products recently pulled from Apple's digital shelves, only time will tell if Cupertino plans to replenish its stock of Fitbit products.
Apple refuses to comment on its relationship with vendors and it appears no internal memos have tipped Apple store employees on the tech company's plans on future dealings with Fitbit. AppleInsider posed questions to Apple store employees, though no one could say how long Fitbit's products would remain on the shelves.
Shortly after Apple's HealthKit made its debut earlier this fall, Fitbit stated it didn't plan to support the iOS 8 health platform. The company, however, said it was open to feedback from users and asked for those interested in HealthKit integration to detail what they wanted out of Apple's health platform.
"It is an interesting new platform and we will watch as it matures, looking for opportunities to improve the Fitbit experience," stated Fitbit in post on its forum. "At the moment, we're working on other exciting projects that we think will be valuable to users."
After Fitbit's forum post, the company's CEO and founder, John Park, fleshed out his company's response by releasing a detailed statement on why the company was not jumping onto the HealthKit bandwagon. Park said his company was committed to maintaining support for users across all platforms, even Windows Phone.
"While HealthKit works only on the iOS platform, we also plan to maintain direct integrations with our partners so that Android, Windows Phone and PC and Mac users in addition to our iOS users can benefit from our partnerships," stated Fitbit.
Fitbit hasn't made clear its intentions to support Google Fit or Microsoft's incoming health platform, though the philosophy it has taken with HealthKit may be an indicator as to how it will address the others.
Fitbit rival Runtastic has been embracing Apple's health platform, slowly rolling out support for HealthKit. Florian Gschwandtner, Runtastic co-founder and CEO, gave several nods to Apple's fitness platform in announcing his company's latest app, Sleep Better.
"We are very excited to launch Sleep Better, and believe that integrating with Apple's HealthKit will have a profound impact on improving users' sleep habits and achieving a healthier lifestyle," said Gschwandtner.
