Reserve Strap' Suspends Shipments Due to Apple Watch Accessory Port Policy Change
Remember Reserve Strap? The company who’s aim it was to extend the battery life of your Apple Watch by creating a smart band that connected to the Apple Watch diagnostic port. Well, the company has just updated its customers on the status of the strap and it looks like nobody will be getting their Reserve Strap after all. Why? Apple’s updated accessory port policy.
Beginning with watchOS 2.0.1 an unexpected change to the Apple External Accessory Protocol disabled the functionality of Reserve Strap. Until this change, Reserve Strap functioned perfectly–extending the battery life of Apple Watch by over 150% in many cases allowing users to keep their Watch charged for up to a week.
Specifically, this bug interferes with the communication between accessories and Apple Watch. For the time being, Apple has suspended use of this port until they unveil an official MFi program for Watch. In keeping with their wishes we will also be suspending shipment of all orders until Apple supports development of smartbands.
The creators of Reserve Strap note that anyone who hasn’t upgraded to watchOS 2.0.1 can still use the Reserve Strap with the company saying they plan to ship in the next “few weeks.” They’re also asking Apple Watch users to contact Apple’s Hardware Evangelism team in order to try and sway them to change their minds.
My guess is that this change was made on purpose by Apple because they want to be the ones to sell the strap to you, at least for the first several months. Rumors of Apple Watch smart bands have been around for quite some time and if I were a betting man, I would bet that we might see them as part of the Apple Watch 2 unveil sometime in the second half of this year. Of course, I could be wrong, but this is something that I’ve heard has been in the works. It’s also one way that Apple could get some first-generation Apple Watch users to upgrade the next version of the Watch if Apple decides to restrict this feature to just the newest version.