And I am personally, as we all are at Nike, very excited about what's to come,' Parker said at the time. 'I will say that the relationship between Nike and Apple will continue. Later in April, Nike CEO Mark Parker confirmed in an interview with CNBC that his company was indeed shifting away from hardware and toward software, adding fuel to the fire surrounding a rumored Apple-Nike partnership for the iWatch. Though the company wouldn't say definitively that it was exiting hardware development - Nike said new colors for the FuelBand were on the way - it did shelve a smaller FuelBand slated for release this fall. The goal was to move Nike's technology focus away from expensive devices and toward its Nike+ app ecosystem. In April, the company fired most of the engineering team responsible for development of wearable hardware at Digital Sport - just six months after the release of its second-generation FuelBand SE, as reported first by CNET. More important, however, is Nike's significant organizational reshuffling with regard to wearables. Among those devices are Motorola's Moto 360 smartwatch and a bevy of competitors from Lenovo, Samsung, Fossil, and others that are expected to clash against the nascent fitness tracker market. The search giant's wearable operating system, Android Wear, will be loaded on a slew of smartwatches. That's not to mention the more immediate threat: Google.

Android support for the FuelBand comes as the rumor mill for Apple's iWatch heats up, with a release tentatively slated for the fall, according to a recent New York Times profile of CEO Tim Cook. The decision to unceremoniously welcome Android in its FuelBand family from Nike comes at a trying time for Nike's wearable efforts. Nike's Stefan Olander, VP of Digital Sport, also played down rumors that the sportswear company's longstanding relationship with Apple - stretching back to 2006 with Nike+iPod - was the reasoning behind the exclusivity. Nike confirmed last year that Android's lack of universal support for Bluetooth LE was the reason why the FuelBand was kept off the platform.

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