Site: http://www.jawbone.com/up

I’m not the first or fifth person to come to mind when a friend talks about fitness gadgetry; the only time I came close to being a buyer was with last year’s iPod nano. I used the pedometer once. Then with the 3DS and StreetPass, I tracked my walking for maybe a week before forgetting about it.

The beauty of Jawbone’s UP bracelet, which I’ve been waiting for most of this year, is that you can’t really forget it. It stays wrapped around your wrist, through showers and workouts, sleep and meals, continually recording your movements and interpreting them as steps, calories, games of tennis, and fitful tosses and turns in the night. Every now and then, you plug it into your iPhone, and an app throws you beautiful infographics and logs your activity, even comparing it to friends’ if you so choose. Competition changes everything, but so does have a visual feedback loop that makes you think about your behavior, and optimizing it.

And it’s just $99.

I’m sure in 9 months we’ll have an UP+ with Bluetooth 4.0 low-power technology that will work with the iPhone 4S, so everything can be wireless, but that doesn’t change the fact that I want one of these NOW. And because this is a Jawbone product, I can’t. It’s only available in the US for now, and they won’t ship it overseas.

This reminds me of the circus that getting a Jambox speaker last Christmas was, which ended with my girlfriend arranging a chain of favors through friends that I’m sorry to have inconvenienced. Jawbone distribution in Singapore is the pits. The Jambox, currently USD$180 in the US, hit the local market late and costs SGD$328, or USD$256. The Icon and Era headsets aren’t far off. It’s criminal bullshit.

They claim it’ll roll out internationally by the end of the year, but I’m not holding my breath. If any kind Stateside soul I follow on Twitter wants to help send me one, I’ll pay by Paypal!