Apple Pulls Nike+ FuelBand and Jawbone UP Off Store Shelves
While Apple is certainly known to take a hard line with certain competitors — remember when they temporarily removed Bose products from stores? — the move to remove Jawbone and Nike products likely has as much to do with space as it does with directing attention towards the Apple Watch.
No it doesn’t.
This is Retail 101: Apple isn’t going to sell inexpensive competing products inside company stores when they’re trying to push their own brand new — and much more highly priced — device. The “house brand” can’t afford to be the costliest option in the store, so Apple has little logical choice but to toss out the lower-priced riffraff. For every customer that comes in ready to buy Apple Watch, another will decide that, “Gee, those fitness tracking features I’ve been hearing so much about sure would come in handy, but the Apple one just costs more than I can afford to spend right now.” Presented with a cheaper option (and not wanting to go away empty-handed), maybe that customer buys a Jawbone or FuelBand instead. And now they have even less money than before, they’re saddled with a product that is comparatively limited in scope, and they’re fully prepared to judge Apple Watch on the merits of the far less capable piece of kit they just bought. Apple isn’t so worried about losing marketshare to these things.
They’re worried about losing mindshare to them.