'Pebble Time' Kickstarter Gained Momentum Following Apple Watch Event
The record-breaking Kickstarter for the new Pebble Time smartwatch gained some momentum off of Apple's "Spring Forward" event last week, reported TechCrunch over the weekend.
The crowd-funding campaign brought in on average $6,000 per hour the Sunday before the big Apple Watch event, a statistic which rose to $10,000 per hour as the event happened on Monday, March 9 and leveled off at $16,000 per hour on March 10.
Speaking on the matter, Pebble CEO and founder Eric Migicovsky said the Apple Watch event doubled the rate of contribution to the Pebble Time Kickstarter, but as TechCrunch pointed out, it was closer to nearly tripling the campaign's hourly rate.
Apple's entry into the smartwatch market no doubt sparked interest in users interested in a wearable device, but perhaps looking for a cheaper alternative, with the ability to connect with Android phones or have a longer-lasting battery life. That train of thought appears to be unsurprising to Migicovsky and the Pebble team, who expected a boost coming off of the Apple Watch event.
“Apple’s event this week caused a nice spike in support for us, as anticipated,” Migicovsky told TechCrunch. “When the biggest company in the world enters your market, that’s the kind of validation you can only dream of. Ultimately the more awareness for smartwatches, and the more choice for consumers, the better for everyone. 2015 is going to be an extraordinarily exciting year.”
The Pebble Time Kickstarter began on February 24, and reached its goal of $500,000 in just under twenty minutes, allowing the company to introduce a more formal option in the Pebble Time Steel one week later. The campaign currently has about 72,000 backers with just over $18.5 million pledged and eleven days to go until its completion.
Popular Stories
Following over three months of beta testing, iOS 18 was finally widely released to the public on Monday, September 16. The update is available in the Settings app under General → Software Update on the iPhone XS and newer. Below, we have highlighted eight key new features included in iOS 18, and Apple shared a complete list of new features and changes last week. Note that Apple...
It's that time of year again. Apple is about to release iOS 18, which promises to bring a range of new features and improvements to iPhones worldwide. It's Apple's biggest software update of the year, and the company is expected to release it sometime today – Monday, September 16. Based on past releases, the update is likely to drop at around 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time/1:00 p.m. Eastern...
Apple will likely hold another event in October this year to announce new Macs and iPads. If so, it would be the fourth time in the last five years that Apple has held an event in October. Last year, Apple held a virtual event on Monday, October 30 to announce new MacBook Pro and iMac models with the M3 series of chips. In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reiterated...
Apple has seemingly leaked the rumored next-generation Mac mini with five USB-C ports, according to a code change within Apple software that was discovered today by MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris. The code refers to an unreleased Mac mini model with an Apple silicon chip and five ports, which lines up with a previous report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman that said the next Mac mini will be ...
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today said demand for the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max has been "lower than expected" since the devices became available to pre-order in the U.S. and dozens of other countries on Friday. Kuo said his data is based on a "supply chain survey" and shipping estimates listed on Apple's online store. Kuo estimated that sales of all four iPhone 16 models reached...
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we sometimes get rumored feature leaks so far ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different – already we have some idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you plan to skip...
