The Pebble smartwatch is probably the best known success story in tech crowdfunding, and unlike other projects, it continued to thrive even after it smashed its campaign target.
With 190,000 smartwatches on wrists around the world and two million app and watch face downloads, the Pebble ecosystem was in dire need of a centralized place where developers could post their applications for the benefit of users. That place is the Pebble Appstore, announced today and opening to users in early 2014.
Details are scarce for now, but the Pebble team calls the store a “one-stop-shop for searching, browsing, and installing Pebble watch faces and apps directly from the iOS or Android Pebble smartphone app”.
Apps will be accepted in the following categories:
Developers can already submit their applications for distribution in the upcoming store. According to the Pebble team, more than 10,000 developers have been contributing to the platform, though we suspect the figure includes users who merely tinkered with watch faces.
Pebble released in November version 2.0 of its SDK, which opened up four new APIs to developers: JavaScript, Accelerometer, Data Logging, and Persistent Storage. If you’re interested in developing for Pebble, the SDK 2.0 should be your starting point, because the app store won’t support older apps. MyPebbleFaces and other sites that distribute apps and watch faces need not worry – Pebble will continue to approve third-party apps.
On a related note, Pebble will be giving away 4,000 smartwatches to students in the United States as part of its Education Project. The device currently sells for $119 on Amazon.
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