Pebble teams up with RunKeeper for its first app

The record-breaking Pebble smartwatch might still have another 16 days to go on Kickstarter, but it already has its first software partner in popular exercise app RunKeeper. A blog post by the RunKeeper team says how excited they are over the concept of the Pebble, and that they see it as the perfect way to “make your fitness tracking easier” by letting you view details of your workout right from your wrist and linking into the app running on your Android or iOS device.

Pebble’s manufacturer Allerta has previously described the watch as an app platform, suggesting that it’s trying to attract a number of apps to its service, and it’s pleasing to hear that a major developer like RunKeeper is already on board. RunKeeper itself is a big name, and its support could be a big draw for Pebble — the current RunKeeper app has over 6,000 reviews on the iTunes App Store, and millions of installs in the last 30 days alone on Android. Software developers are bound to be encouraged by the Pebble’s success on Kickstarter, too: at the time of writing, the project has 53,258 backers, who have collectively pitched more than $7.9 million. The app will be available when the Pebble watch is released in the fall.