Google Killed Web Access to Google Fit, And Nobody Noticed.

Two weeks ago, a yellow “alert” banner appeared at the top of the Google Fit web page. Without so much as a tweet or press release, Google announced that it would no longer support a web version of Google Fit:

As we continue to focus efforts on adding new capabilities that enhance the mobile and smartwatch Google Fit experience, we’ll be turning off this Google Fit website on 19 March 2019.

This bit of news is a quiet milestone: The early world of fitness trackers, pioneered by Fitbit, Misfit, Pebble, Garmin and others is now painfully 1.0. Early Google Fit was a part of that world — a standalone, web-friendly fitness app. Today, Google Fit is increasingly a glossy feature of Wear OS, formerly known as Android Wear. It’s part of the mobile operating system that will bring personal fitness and health features to virtually every non-iOS watch, phone, or tablets made. Smartwatches are no longer those half dozen clunky, overpawed curiosities at Best Buy. They are now…just watches. Here’s the latest from Skagen, currently the top Wear OS pick by Wareable.

It’s another reminder: Wearable, personal sensors will be ubiquitous; and the need for compelling social programming to run on this “hardware layer” continues to grow.