The idea behind ZPump Fusion is simple and revolutionary. Every person’s foot is different— that’s why a particular shoe might work great for you but not for your friend.
As any teenager from the '90s will tell you, there were two things that the coolest kids had to have: a Walkman and a pair of Reebok Pump basketball shoes. The iconic innovation in footwear used a rubber bulb on the tongue to inflate an air capsule in the shoe. The air would instantly put a spring in your step — and apart from being cool, it helped many a person’s game too!
Well, it’s back! But not as a basketball shoe — it’s now a running and fitness trainer. The idea behind Reebok’s ZPump Fusion is simple and revolutionary. Every person’s foot is different— that’s why a particular shoe might work great for you but not for your friend — even if you have the same size.
For running, a proper fit is crucial to prevent injuries and improve efficiency. So the ZPump Fusion uses what the company calls a ‘Fusion Sleeve’ — an inflatable mesh structure that encircles the midfoot and part of the heel. Mashing the pump button fills the sleeve with air making it automatically conform to the contours of each unique foot. A tiny release valve releases the air in the mesh when you want to remove the shoe.
It’s a great idea because it provides a custom fit to almost anyone for a shoe that has been mass produced in a factory. Think of it like a piece of custom tailoring — but for your foot. The outsole, by comparison, is nothing extraordinary. The company calls it a Z rated outsole (inspired by high performance Z rated car tyres) and it’s been engineered for grip and extra control while turning. The design is not very loud or ostentatious — the men’s range is black (with red, blue or high visibility highlights) and a white outsole. The women’s range drops the blue highlight and instead offers a sober white-gray. The price is the only downer (especially considering that US retail price is less than half of what it is in India) but if you want a unique, comfortable and effective running shoe, this is it.
Jio Chat, the new messaging platform from Reliance Infocomm, is now live on the Android and iOS app stores. It’s being billed as an Indian alternative to WhatsApp and the makers seem to have pulled out all the stops while making it.
First, a little background. WhatsApp is the largest messaging service in the world — at 700 million active monthly users (and growing) as per the last official count. That’s a huge head start! Can you also imagine the kind of resistance to change? It’s likely that anyone you know who uses a messaging app, anywhere in the world, uses WhatsApp as a primary messenger service. All the groups you’re part of will be so hard to disband and re-make on an entirely new platform.
Jio still deserves a chance though. We gave the app a test run on a couple of Android and iOS devices. At the time of writing, Jio Chat had over 1,700 ratings and a combined score of 4.4 (out of 5) on Google’s Play Store. On Apple’s App Store, 23 ratings put the average score at 4.5+.
Jio has a lot more features than WhatsApp — primarily the ability to make free voice calls, video calls, group video calls and send files to any other Jio Chat user (see A Quick Comparison).
While the interface is clean (and quite similar to WhatsApp), we found that there were a few rough edges. On some Android phones which use Hangouts as the default SMS app, it would not proceed beyond the initial registration. The 100 free SMSes that the app offers just did not work (they were never delivered). And many features seem to ape WhatsApp directly (chat backgrounds, emoticons and so on).
Apart from the proud ‘Made in India’ tag, Jio Chat seems to be a way to build hype around the brand’s upcoming 4G network. In the leadup to the launch, there will likely be a bunch of other ‘Jio’ apps that complement the high speed network (most likely for live TV and multiplayer gaming). The few niggles that the chat app has can be ironed out with future updates.
ET Bureau
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