Nike + feels like one of those things that I have talked about in presentations and at conferences for years. Since before the Internet. Since Tom Hanks last did a good movie.
You know the script - branded utility, blah, blah, not what you say but what you let people do, blah, blah.
But I had never actually really used the blighter. To the point where I went through a phase where I slagged it off everywhere (contrary provocative type me). This was down to the increasingly negative reviews of the product in the Apple store. Initially everyone gave it 5 stars, but after 3 months this reversed and started becoming closer to 1 star. It appeared that the doo-dah that you put in your shoe runs out of juice after a few months, and you can't replace the battery (or the doo-dah separately). So people were grumpily returning to the Apple site to voice their displeasure at having to buy another.
Now you could look at that one way - it is a shit product that everyone will eventually hate. Ooooor, you could say that it is so God damn good that when it dies (after much overuse), that people are so devastated at the loss that they irrationally take out their addiction deprivation angst on Apple and Nike.
I plumped for the first theory until I started using it. I'm doing this bloody 10km thing on Sunday, so thought getting a Nike + band would inspire me to actually train. And blow me it has.
Sure, the flash website is far too wanky and contrived to be of genuine use. All the loading bars and crawling pace of user experience make it feel a bit 2001. But there is nothing more satisfying coming in from a run (as I just have) and plugging in the dongle and seeing all your effort plotted in pixelated glory.
I've got into it so much, in fact, that I over-exerted myself on Monday and managed to fling my doo-dah out of my shoe. Concentrating far too intensely on my run (and techno in my headphones), I missed its departure at 5.25km in. Bollocks. But it took me less than 12 hours to go back to Nike Town and buy another one. £40?! Pah. It's worth it.
Oh, and if anyone needs a dongle without a doo-dah, shout and I'll flog it to you.



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