Nike To Discontinue App For Expensive Shoes Already Bought, Breaking Some Features
Here we are again, with yet another example of how buying digital products, or buying products that have a digital component to them, doesn’t mean you have any actual ownership and control of those products. We have seen a bunch of examples of this recently, from Oral-B removing Alexa-based features from one of its toothbrush products, to Spotify fully bricking a piece of hardware it sold to customers mere months after selling them, to digital stores just simply disappearing a bunch of content people thought they had bought, only to learn that they had licensed it temporarily instead. In some of these cases, customers are offered refunds, typically after public pressure. In other cases, no refunds are offered and customers are told to go pound sand.
But in every single one of these situations there is one constant: customers made a purchase based on how a product would operate at the time of purchase, only to have that changed on the whim of the seller after the purchase. We can get into all the legalese and discussions about terms of service and contractual language we want, but the end result is customers thinking they were buying a product only to find out that, nah, not so much.
Which brings us to Nike. Now, I will fully admit that I only learned that Nike had a sort of “smart sneaker” that allowed customers to govern actions like self-tying laces and changing LED lights on the shoes through an app when I started looking into this story. For the life of me, I can’t imagine why anyone would want such a thing. However, I’m in my 40s these days and I’m probably no longer a good arbiter as to what the current sneakerhead culture is interested in.
And it seems plenty of folks did in fact buy the Adapt BB basketball sneaker, which came with the ability to control certain functions of the shoe with the Nike Adapt app. You can read all about the app on the Nike website, which is odd because Nike also recently announced that the app would be discontinued. This means that certain functions within the app for existing users will no longer function even if the user already has the app downloaded to their phone. And if they get a new device, or wipe their current device, they will also be unable to re-download the app at all.
Those who already bought the shoes can still use the app after August 6, but it’s expected that iOS or Android updates will eventually make the app unusable. Also, those who get a new device won’t be able to download Adapt after August 6.
Without the app, wearers are unable to change the color of the sneaker’s LED lights. The lights will either maintain the last color scheme selected via the app or, per Nike, “if you didn’t install the app, light will be the default color.” While owners will still be able to use on-shoe buttons to turn the shoes on or off, check its battery, adjust the lace’s tightness, and save fit settings, the ability to change lighting and control the shoes via mobile phone were big selling points of the $350 kicks.
And so here we are again. Nike sold expensive shoes to customers who bought them due to certain selling points, one of which was all the control they would have over the shoes using this app that is being neutered first, and which will disappear one way or the other eventually. Notably absent from any of Nike’s communication on this, as of the time of this writing, is any offer of any sort of refund. Or an offer to let the app go open source, so that others can continue developing it for customer use.
Instead, the customers are simply screwed out of the product they thought they were buying. Which, understandably, has them somewhat perturbed.
Adapt BB owners have shared disappointment after learning the news. One Reddit user who claimed to own multiple pairs of the shoes called the news “hyper bullshit,” while another described it as “immensely disappointing.”
Reddit user rtuite81 called Adapt’s sunsetting “entirely expected, but frustrating.” They added:
“I knew this day would come … I just didn’t think it would be so soon LOL. I’ve only had these for a little over a year and worn them about 15 times. Hopefully my current phone outlasts the shoes.”
What a sad way to throw up your hands and acknowledge that there’s nothing that can be done here. But something should be done. I’m going to keep repeating this: there needs to be a conversation started about consumer rights when it comes to digital products and products that have a digital component to them.
This practice of customers losing out on what they’ve bought at the whims of a seller cannot continue.