If you're an Apple fan and you're looking for some unique company merchandise to show your love, you need to make your way to the company's visitor center in Cupertino.

Right across the street from Apple Park, the company's spaceship headquarters, the center has within it an Apple Store that features items you can't find anywhere else. Better yet, while Apple severely restricts who can get into its headquarters building, it welcomes all comers to its visitor center.

Read on to see what you'll find within:

Sometimes, Tyler Oakley just needs some alone time.

Since 2007, Oakley has lived a portion of his life on a screen — building a following of over seven million subscribers on YouTube. He began vlogging in college at Michigan State University, and that vlog has turned into a media empire.

"At the end of the day, I still very much feel like just a Michigan boy that gets to live this crazy life and dream," he tells Business Insider. Oakley is an author, YouTube and documentary star, podcast host, LGBTQ activist, and a role model for countless people who follow him across social media.

Oakley made his name through his weekly YouTube videos, which feature everything from interviews with former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, videos answering viewer questions, and a series called "Chosen Family: Stories of Queer Resilience." His most-watched video to-date is "The Photobooth Challenge" featuring Miranda Sings, which has more than 13 million views.

And now Oakley is a mentor to a young McDonald's employee named Kaila as part of the fast-food giant's "Where You Want to Be" initiative, which aims to "connect the skills they learn on the job with the education, tuition assistance and career tools available to take the next step in their professional journey."

Through this initiative, some McDonald's employees get to team up with an influencer in the fields of arts and entertainment, technology, entrepreneurship, healthcare, and restaurant and food service. (McDonald's also hopes to use this initiative to highlight new career advice tools on its Archway to Opportunity.)

If you're a loyal viewer of Oakley's videos, it's not surprising that Oakley teamed up with McDonald's. He got his first job at the fast-food chain, and in 2018 during his "Going Home" series, he worked for a day at his old store — and in a role-reversal, Kaila was in charge of training him.

Read more: People are watching YouTubers study for hours and they say the popular trend helps them stay focused

On this mild January afternoon in Los Angeles, Oakley enters a conference room that has a sterile glow and bright white furniture. A phalanx of people file in, and the interview looks more like board meeting at a millennial-run startup. Oakley, dressed in a gray T-shirt and blue jeans with dark grey rimmed glasses, sits at the head of the table. He has a boyish look, and two tattoos are visible on his right arm (an owl and an acorn).

In person, Oakley isn't far from his YouTube persona. He's funny, attentive, and disarmingly nice — complimenting my shirt, and telling me that he feels like we've met before, though we haven't. But he's also more subdued. He's spent the day walking Kaila through his work schedule and taping his weekly podcast "Psychobabble" with Korey Kuhl. Completing the synergy, Kaila and Oakley's day was captured in a McDonald's-sponsored video.

And now he has 15 minutes to talk to me. Ready? Go.

In the spirit of Oakley's new role as a mentor, we decided to ask him for some career advice. Here's what he had to say:

Oakley says he uses his mornings to focus on the day ahead

He wakes up at 7 a.m. (without an alarm clock), and he hits the gym.

"Every morning when I'm alone waking up in my bed, I'm like, 'Hey, how do I envision my day?' 'What do I have on my schedule?' and "How do I want it to turn out?'" he said. "Like, that type of mindset is really important."

Teamwork is key to doing 'things bigger and better and more effectively'

As important as alone time is, teamwork makes the dream work.

"When I decided to try and attempt going full-time YouTube, the biggest learning lesson I had was you can do it alone, but you can do it so much bigger if you bring people in who are experts in many different things that maybe you're not an expert in," Oakley explained.

He likens it to his first job at McDonald's — you need a "team of competent people, who respect the job, and who respect each other" to accomplish a bigger goal.

Taking responsibility goes a long way

Taking initiative is important, whether you're part of a team or directly responsible for your own success, Oakley says.

"I think a skill that goes so underrated is just learning a sense of responsibility," he explains.

In his YouTube career, self-motivation has been a major driving factor.

"It takes somebody who is a self-starter and understands that my successes and my failures are my responsibility," he said. "And so whether I get up in the morning and I decided I'm going to film today or not that's my decision. And to understand the responsibility of 'OK, well if this is going to be my career, I need to rise to that occasion.'"

The importance of authenticity

While being vulnerable on his YouTube channel, or being an unabashed fangirl on Twitter may seem specific to Oakley's job as a media personality, the basic concept of authenticity can be broadly applied.

"The best I can be as a creator depends on me connecting with people, and if I don't share and be vulnerable in a meaningful way, what can people connect with?" he posited. "If I'm saying the most vague things that can stick against every wall, then what makes the connection deep between me and the consumer of whatever I'm making?"

Being able to learn and pivot from rejection

For Oakley, not getting his dream job doing ad sales at Google forced him to get creative. In his own words, Oakley had "all of his eggs" in the Google basket, and he was "devastated" after getting that rejection, several weeks before Christmas during his senior year in college.

But the crushing moment also "made me open my eyes of what I could possibly do elsewhere," he said.

"I had always thought I was just going to work at a desk, sell ad space on Google, and never in my mind — because I thought for so long that that's what I was going to be — never in my mind did I think, 'oh maybe I could do something in entertainment, or do something in writing or do something like this,'" he said. "If I had gotten that job, I never would have been creative with what I could do."

'My favorite thing that I tap into is alone time'

When asked if there is anything he can't live without, Oakley says "alone time." And after living so much of your life on the internet, it makes sense that Oakley would need time to recharge.

"I feel like it is so underrated, so underappreciated." Oakley said. "Time with myself, time with my thoughts. Because when you're around somebody, around people all day long — including when you're on your phone, because when you're scrolling you are virtually surrounded."

"To give yourself space from everybody and everything lets you really kind of center and refocus."

Facebook routinely blocks ads promoting women's health products, particularly those that treat symptoms of menopause, CNBC reported on Saturday.

The company has blocked most of the ads Seattle startup Pulse has tried to post on the social networking site over the last 18 months, according to the report. Other companies like Pulse that offer vaginal lubrication and related products have also found their ads blocked by Facebook, CNBC reported.

Their experience is in sharp contrast with companies that offer products that treat erectile dysfunction or other men's health issues, according to the report. Those companies are generally able to run their ads on Facebook without hindrance, according to the report.

"It has been a battle with Facebook," Pulse CEO Amy Buckalter told CNBC. "It has been basically gender bias ... And it's cost me money."

Facebook's advertising policies restrict ads that promote adult products and content due to the fact that people with widely varying cultural sensitivities use its services, a company representative told CNBC.

But, the representative added, "We continue to review these specific ads."

Representatives for Facebook and Pulse did not immediately respond to emails from Business Insider seeking comment.

This isn't the first time that Facebook has faced accusations of gender bias in its ad business. In September, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Communications Workers of America filed a complaint against Facebook with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charging that the company had illegally allowed advertisers to target job ads only at men.

A contemporaneous report in ProPublica detailed how Uber and 14 other companies were advertising jobs on Facebook to people of just one gender.

You can read the full CNBC report here.

AUSTIN, TEXAS — "The Great War" has come to Austin.

HBO has created a set bringing "Game of Thrones" to life at SXSW, where fans can experience what it's like to be a part of the world of Westeros.

Actors playing various residents from Westeros — from the Dothraki to the Free Folk — live out elaborate storylines inspired by iconic characters from the hit series, while visitors interact with them as though they are being initiated into the army of the living in the battle against the dead.

"'Game of Thrones' is about sacrifice and devotion, and that's what's happening here," Trevor Guthrie, cofounder at agency Giant Spoon, which created the experience, told Business Insider. "Just as all the groups are uniting together on the show for the cause, guests can join them by bending the knee and helping out for a cause."

That cause is blood donation. HBO is also running a global blood donation campaign supporting The American Red Cross by harnessing the power of "Game of Thrones" fans by asking them, "Will you bleed for the throne?"

The experience takes guests on a journey inside Westeros' medieval fantasy world, and is an audiovisual extravaganza. It is one of the most elaborate stunts that HBO has ever attempted — even though it didn't involve setting up a whole town in the American Frontier as its "SXSWestworld" experience from 2018 did.

This is not the first time that HBO has taken over SXSW with a "Game of Thrones"-themed activation. It set up a full-size iron throne in 2014, and gave fans a chance to test their sword-fighting skills through VR back in 2015.

I had a chance to visit the "Game of Thrones" experience for Business Insider this year. As a fan of the the show, the experience blew my mind.

The final season of "Game of Thrones" premieres on April 14.

Ever Loved co-founder and CEO Alison Johnston

Cashless stores are becoming controversial.

Stores that do not accept cash are on the rise, from quick-service lunch spots to Amazon's physical stores. Not accepting cash can speed up lines or eliminate them altogether, making life easier for card-carrying consumers.

Not everybody is on board with this cashless utopia, however. Backlash has started, as the cashless trend leaves out lower-income customers who may not have a bank account. As of last year, an estimated 15.6 million people in the US do not have a bank account.

Philadelphia recently banned stores from choosing not to accept cash.

"Most of the people who don't have credit tend to be lower income, minority, immigrants. It just seemed to me, if not intentional, at least a form of discrimination," Philadelphia City Councilman William Greenlee told the Wall Street Journal.

Massachusetts has already banned stores from rejecting cash as payment. Lawmakers in New York City and New Jersey are considering similar measures.

A ban like this will predominantly affect chic lunch spots like Sweetgreen, but also Amazon's nascent physical store footprint. None of Amazon's stores accept cash unless required by law.

Read more: Amazon is closing all 87 of its pop-up stores, reportedly laying off all employees

In fact, the whole point of Amazon Go, the chain's tech-powered cashierless convenience store, is that there's no need to pay a cashier. Customers can just swipe their app and go. The store's cameras and sensors will see what you take and charge you accordingly.

An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment to Business Insider.

Amazon had reportedly expressed concern about the law in Philadelphia, telling the city's department of commerce "several times" that it would not open an Amazon Go store in the city if the law passed, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The new law does allow for a store to use only app-based transactions, but only if a paid membership is required to shop there. You don't need a paid Prime membership to shop at Amazon's Go stores — only an Amazon account — eliminating the potential for a loophole.

Even without the upscale Laramie Longhorn package, this is the best full-size pickup truck I've ever tested. I even got to challenge the 4x4 system with about a foot of snow at our suburban New Jersey test center, and the RAM brushed it off like nothing.

OK, I'll accept that the F-150 and Silverado loyalists out there don't like the RAM's suspension. Yes, it could break down under serious stress. But in my testing, this truck was bliss to drive.

"It truly is the level of refinement that the RAM 1500 brings to the segment that helps it stand out, even as Ford and Chevy/GMC sell more trucks," I wrote in my review of the outgoing generation. "RAM has carved out far more than niche at number three and isn't dropping the ball when it comes to what its loyalist expect."

With the all-new 2019 pickup, RAM might have moved past that No. 3 niche and positioned the Silverado in its sights. The RAM 1500 is a no-compromise pickup, perfectly pitched for the new pickup market, which is as much about everyday driving as hardcore performance.

Don't get me wrong — the Silverado is no slouch. And in fairness, the RAM 1500 I tested cost $12,000 more, so it should have been impressive.

But even taking that into account, I think the RAM is a superior full-size beast, and while the 5.7-liter Hemi V8 isn't as powerful on paper as the Silverado's 6.2-liter V8, the RAM's torque-boosting hybrid makes the 1500 feel as though it has more punch. And the RAM's eight-speed transmission, in my hands, felt as though it shifted more smoothly than the Silverado's ten-speed.

Pickup-truck buyers don't want for choices these days. But boy! I challenge anybody seeking a new truck to sample the RAM 1500 and not be tempted by what I think is the best full-size pickup money can buy.

In the last few years, Apple has quietly become one of the biggest investors in research and development in the world.

The major uptick in its spending on R&D represents not only a huge investment — nearly $50 billion over its last five fiscal years — but also a major change in strategy. In the past, Apple thrived by capitalizing on technologies invented elsewhere; it's now engaging in some of the basic research it previously depended on others to do.

But with nothing on the horizon to make up for the declining sales of the iPhone, its last huge product hit, investors and analysts have begun to question Apple's massive investment, wondering what it's getting for its money and when some of its high-stakes bets might start to pay off. They're also starting to worry about how well the company is positioning itself for the future.

Despite all the money Apple has thrown at research and development, "we've seen minimal fruits of that labor," said Dan Ives, a financial analyst who covers the company for Wedbush.

With the smartphone market maturing, he continued, Apple is "going through a mini-crisis or a code-red situation."

Apple has been consistently increasing its investment in R&D for the last 20 years. Even as its sales have fluctuated up and down in recent years, the company has continued to ramp up its spending. But the company has dramatically ramped up its research investment in recent years.

Apple's R&D budget now ranks among the top in the world

Amazon CEO Jeff BezosREUTERS/Joshua RobertsIn 2018, the iPhone maker spent a whopping $14.7 billion on research and development. That's more than what Intel spent and and nearly three times as much as IBM did. In terms of absolute R&D spending, Apple now trails only Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft— all well-renowned for their research efforts — among American companies and ranks. Those companies are also some of the biggest investors in R&D globally.

Part of the reason Apple has been able to devote so much money to research and development is because it takes in more revenue than nearly every other company in the world. But the step-up in its R&D spending isn't just a function of having a lot of revenue. The electronics giant has been devoting increasing portions of its revenue to the effort.

Every year since 2012, when Apple's investment in R&D as a percentage of its sales bottomed out at 2.2%, the growth in its research budget has outpaced its sales growth. In its last fiscal year, Apple's research and development costs amounted to 5.4% of its sales. That was the highest ratio at the company since 2004, when Apple was a small fraction of its current size and was still three years away from launching the iPhone.

Shayanne Gal/Business Insider

Read this: These 6 charts show how Apple has transformed itself into one of the biggest investors in R&D in the world

In terms of the amount of its revenue it apportions to R&D, Apple still trails far behind some of its big tech peers, including Facebook, which devotes about 18% of its revenue to research, as well as pharmaceutical giants such as AbbVie, which invests a whopping 32% of its revenue into R&D. But those companies have traditionally spent much more on research than Apple and the drug companies in particular are heavily dependent on having a strong pipeline of new, patent-protected drugs to maintain their sales and profits.

Meanwhile, Apple's recent uptick in research spending has put it ahead of such companies as General Motors, GE, and Boeing, and within spitting distance of IBM — all mainstream firms that have long-standing R&D efforts.

Apple is investing in autonomous cars and wearable technology

Apple generally keeps its research projects close to the vest. Apple is "investing significantly in R&D," and much of that investment is going to "things we don't talk about," CEO Tim Cook said at the company's annual shareholder meeting earlier this month.

Apple has been focusing some of its research efforts on health technology. It recently added an electrocardiogram feature to the Apple Watch. Apple But it's well known that the company has been working for years on a self-driving car project. It's also been investing in augmented reality technology; some of the early results of that effort can be seen in the new AR features it's added to the iPhone's operating system.

And Cook did offer shareholders at the meeting insights into where some of Apple's R&D money is going.

Some of its research investment is in designing computer chips for future products, he said. The company is working on new versions of its wearables products, most notably Apple Watch and its AirPods headphones, he said. And it's developing additional health-related features for those devices. In its last major update to the software underlying Apple Watch, the company added the ability for the device to take electrocardiograph readings.

"You will see continued things in the watch area that keep pulling the string between wellness and health," Cook said at the meeting. "You can bet," he continued, "that there's a long great roadmap of super-fantastic products on the AirPod and the watch."

But the question remains whether Apple is getting its money's worth from its huge investment.

To critics, it's not.

The iPhone is still all-important to Apple

Despite all of the money it's invested in R&D, Apple remains highly dependent on the fortunes of just one product line — the iPhone — they note. Nothing that the company has developed in the years since it released the first iPhone in 2007 has come close to being on par with that huge hit. When iPhone sales are weak, none of Apple's other products can make up the difference — even when their results are all combined together.

Apple has seen weak demand for its latest iPhones, the XS, left, XS Max, and XR. Apple In Apple's most recent quarter, for example, every one of its product lines, other than the iPhone, saw their sales grow. Sales of AirPods and Apple Watches even grew by more than 50%, according to the company. But because of a sharp decline in iPhone demand, Apple's overall revenue fell nearly 5%.

Wall Street is expecting the tough times to continue. Analysts are generally projecting that Apple will see its overall revenue and profit fall this year, thanks to plunging iPhone sales.

Read this:Here's why Apple's iPhone sales won't get better anytime soon

Those results and outlook are evidence that Apple's R&D efforts aren't paying off, critics say.

Take smartphones. That market is maturing. Most consumers around the world now own one. With prices of phones having risen and fewer compelling new innovations spurring people to upgrade their devices, sales have slowed.

Apple is trailing behind in smartphones and elsewhere

The two most important new features in smartphones that could convince consumers to trade in their old devices for new models are support for the fast fifth-generation — or 5G— cellular networks and the ability to fold and unfold them so they can offer a larger screen in a still-compact design, analysts say. But the latest iPhones don't offer either feature, and Apple isn't likely to add either one until next year's models at the earliest, they say. That's going to depress Apple's phones sales in the interim, they say.

Samsung introduced its foldable Galaxy Fold phone last month. Samsung In the smartphone market, "they're way behind on some of these innovations," said Dan Niles, a founding partner at AlphaOne Capital Partners, which is short Apple's stock.

But Apple's trailing behind elsewhere too, which is why it can't make up for slumping iPhone sales, critics say. In some of the hottest areas of tech — self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, smart-home products — it's been a laggard, Ives said. In the smart speaker market in particular, Apple's HomePod "trailed [Amazon's] Echo by miles," he said.

Apple's R&D efforts "have not been able to pivot" to new technologies "as well as those of Google and even Amazon," Ives said. "You've seen the impact of that in the last few years where they've kind of been a day late and a dollar short on a lot of these initiatives."

It doesn't have a lot to show for its R&D investment

Indeed, the company doesn't have a lot to show for its R&D investments other than repeated disappointments. Its autonomous vehicle effort, for example, has reportedly undergone numerous management shakeups and changes in direction and is in the process of laying off 190 people. While Alphabet's Waymo is already testing a ride-hailing service in Phoenix that's built around its self-driving vehicles, Apple appears to be still in the early stages of testing its technology, records it's submitted to California regulators indicate.

Waymo has been testing a taxi service built around its self-driving vans in Phoenix. Waymo The company also reportedly spent years trying to develop a smart television and a streaming video service. It eventually scuttled the TV and to date, it's not released anything based on the efforts, other than updates to its Apple TV digital media player. However, it is widely expected to announce a subscription-based streaming video service at the end of this month.

Apple was a pioneer in digital media with the music and video downloads it sold and streamed through its iTunes store and software, noted Niles. But by the time it launches it streaming video service, it will be far behind Netflix, which has nearly 140 million subscribers worldwide.

"We've been waiting for a TV streaming service [from Apple] for years," Niles said. He continued: "This is not a nascent market."

It's got a "large company problem"

Apple's R&D efforts overall seem to be suffering from a collection of circumstances and problems that are unique to the company. Because of Apple's huge size, if it wants to continue to grow, it needs to make bets on big potential markets, said Gene Munster, a managing partner at Loup Venture who previously worked as a Wall Street analyst that focused on Apple. That's why, for all the trouble it seems to be having in its car effort and as difficult as that market will likely be for Apple to enter, the endeavor makes sense, he said.

Apple's Macintosh operating system was built off of pioneering work done by Xerox for its Alto computers. Wikimedia Commons "They have a large company problem," Munster said. The car market, he continued, is "about as juicy a revenue opportunity as you can find ... For a tech company to grow and change the world, it needs to be there."

Another factor playing into Apple's R&D troubles seems to stem from a change in their focus, analysts said. For much of its history, Apple wasn't known for doing much in the way of basic research. Instead, it was a master of taking technologies invented elsewhere and turning them into breakthrough mass-market devices.

The company famously built the Macintosh computer, for example, around the graphical user interface that was developed years earlier at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. The iPod wasn't the first MP3 player, and Apple didn't invent either the MP3 audio format or the mini-hard drive that was at the device's heart. Smartphones and touchscreens had been around for years before Apple released the iPhone.

Tim Cook says Apple is "rolling the dice"

These days, though, Apple appears to be doing more basic research. Autonomous vehicles are still a nascent technology. AI is in its early days. So too is augmented reality.

Some analysts think Apple is still trying to adjust to the loss of founder Steve Jobs.Jeff Chiu/APThe shift to earlier stages of R&D was necessary, because technology is advancing faster than ever before, and Apple is facing much more formidable competitors than it did in the early days of the MP3 or smartphone markets, Munster said. It doesn't have the luxury of sitting back and waiting until the technology and the markets mature to jump in anymore, he said.

"There's more of an urgency from the company [as] these waves are coming faster," he said.

At Apple's shareholder meeting, Cook said that it looks at its research and development efforts as long-term investments. The chips it's working on now won't debut in shipping products for three or four years. Some of things it's working on won't pan out at all, he said. But Apple doesn't yet know which ones will fail, and it needs to take some risks, he said.

"We're rolling the dice on some things," he said. "That's the way," he continued, "that we ultimately do bold things is to not have as a precursor that everything ... has to have a high probability of success."

There's confusion in Cupertino

But even taking that into account, the company seems to be suffering from one other problem, critics say. More than seven years after his death, Apple still seems to be adjusting to the loss of founder Steve Jobs, analysts said.

At the time of Jobs' death, Apple had a pretty full pipeline of products in the works, Niles said. What's more, Jobs, by many accounts, played a crucial role in directing the company's product development efforts and picking and choosing what Apple would focus on. The company's research efforts are missing that focus these days, Ives said.

"They've had one toe in the water around a bunch of these R&D initiatives," he said. "I think there's a lot of confusion even in secret walls of Cupertino in terms of the direction they want to go.

Got tip about Apple or other tech companies? Contact this reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., message him on Twitter @troywolv, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Nearly 3.2 million compact SUVs left US showrooms in 2018. According to data compiled by Kelley Blue Book, that represents 18.2% of total US auto sales last year.

In spite of the sheer scale of the segment, competition for buyers is fierce. At the top of the sales chart, are the traditional industry stalwarts like the Toyota RAV4, Honda CR-V, Nissan Rogue, Chevrolet Equinox, Ford Escape, and Jeep Cherokee. This top bracket sold between 239,000 units (Cherokee) and 427,000 units (RAV4) in 2018.

And then there's a group of capable performers that sell in slightly smaller, but still impressive quantities — between 100,000 and 200,000 cars.

These include the Subaru Forester, Mazda CX-5, Jeep Compass, and Volkswagen Tiguan.

Another member of this group is the Hyundai Tucson. The Korean compact SUV saw US sales jump 24% last to more than 142,000 units.

Read more: We drove a $30,000 Hyundai Kona SUV to see if it's ready to take on Jeep, Honda, and Toyota. Here's the verdict.

The current third-generation Tucson debuted in 2015 for the 2016 model year. This year, Hyundai gave the crossover a mid-life update that included a revised engine lineup, a brand new interior, new technology, and refreshed styling.

Recently, Business Insider had the chance to check out a new 2019 Hyundai Tucson Ultimate AWD in the roads in and around Atlanta, Georgia.

The base 2019 Tucson SE front-wheel-drive starts at $23,200 while the top-of-the-line Ultimate trim with front-wheel drive starts at $31,550. All-wheel-drive is a $1,400 option. With options and fees, our Tucson came to an as-tested price of $34,120.

Here's a closer look at the 2019 Hyundai Tucson:

Uber has published its annual "lost and found index."

Not surprisingly, the ride-hailing giant sees plenty of things left behind in cars during its millions of rides every day. Not surprisingly late nights on weekends tend to be when the rate of lost items tend to be the highest.

Some usual items — like phones, cameras, wallets and keys — are among the most lost items, as you might expect. But there were plenty of unusual objects left behind too.

We skimmed the list for some of the strangest = objects, from Harry Potter wands, to beard oil. Here they are:

One of the best things about wearing a smartwatch is that it lessens the need to reach for your phone every time you want to check the time, see a new text message or set a timer.

By the same logic, wouldn't it make sense if you could do all those things with just your voice? After all, that would make it even easier than tapping and swiping a tiny screen on your wrist.

Three out of the four top players in the smartwatch game think so and have integrated powerful virtual assistants, like Siri and Google Assistant, into their wearables.

But Fitbit, one of the biggest smartwatch makers in the world, lacks any type of virtual assistant and doesn't support voice commands. The San Francisco company owes its success to bucking the trends and doing its own thing.

As the smartwatch market matures, Fitbit's fitness-centric devices are at a critical crossroads where the pressure to join the voice assistant parade or try to stand out further in its own ways will be greater than ever.

One of these is not like the other

Apple's virtual helper Siri has been available on the Apple Watch since the first generation model launched in 2015. And various smartwatches from companies like Fossil and Misfit that run on Google's Wear OS software include the Google Assistant. Samsung too has put its Bixby digital helper on the Galaxy Watch.

For wearable devices like smartwatches that don't have large, intuitive touchscreens for interactions, voice support can be crucial. While notifications and activity tracking are the most popular reasons most people use smartwatches according to a 2017 survey from market research firm NPD Group, features such as setting alarms, GPS navigation, and home automation were also listed as frequently-used functions.

All of the latter features are quicker and more convenient to initiate on a watch by asking a digital assistant rather than tapping and scrolling through an interface on the wrist. The survey also listed phone calls as a top feature, which isn't possible on watches like the Versa that don't include a microphone. (Fitbit's Flyer headphones work with Siri, the Google Assistant, and Microsoft's Cortana assistant.)

Of course, it's important to note that there's a critical difference between Fitbit and its competitors. Fitbit is a digital health company at its core. It rose to popularity by producing simple trackers and fitness bands like the Fitbit Zip and Fitbit Flex, and more recently it's expanded into the enterprise and healthcare space with its Fitbit Care platform aimed at corporate wellness programs. The company is also launching a paid fitness service in the second half of 2019 and is looking into ways its products can be used to help detect larger health issues like sleep apnea and atrial fibrillation.

Still, it's become abundantly clear in recent years that the company is trying to compete in the mainstream smartwatch market. That's evident when you look at some of the features it's introduced in its Ionic and Versa line of smartwatches in recent years, such as its mobile payment service Fitbit Pay, its smartwatch app store, and the ability to reply to Android text messages directly from the watch. It also acquired smartwatch startup Pebble's assets in 2016, further signaling its intentions to move beyond fitness tracking.

Health features are becoming more common

Apple and Google, meanwhile, operate the two most popular smartphone software platforms in the world. So it' snot surprising that they've integrated many of their popular smartphone features — such as Siri and the Google Assistant — into their wearables.

Voice interaction aside, the prominence of digital assistants like Siri and the Google Assistant is only likely to become more important for smartwatches in the future as these virtual helpers get better at surfacing relevant information before we even ask. The Apple Watch, for example, now offers a Siri watch face that displays timely information throughout the day, such as reminders and traffic updates.

Fitbit is stepping up its game outside of fitness, with basics like like call and text notifications, calendar alerts, music playback and control, but it's missing that extra layer of contextual software.

Fitbit CEO James ParkFlickr/Official LeWeb Photos

That's not to say there aren't other areas in which Fitbit shines compared to its rivals, particularly when it comes to health. Not only do the Versa and newly announced Versa Lite offer a broad array of health tracking features, but they make use of that data through features like Cardio Fitness Level, which analyzes your resting heart rate and the data you provide in your profile to help you improve your cardio fitness over time. Certain Fitbit devices can also tell you how much time you've spend in light, deep, and REM sleep rather than just telling you how long you've slept. The Apple Watch doesn't even support sleep tracking although Fitbit has offered this for years, but Apple is reportedly planning to bring feature to its smartwatch in 2020. The entry-level Versa watch, the recently announced Versa Lite, is also less than half the price of an Apple Watch Series 4.

"For us, it's not just about the latest features at the highest price points," Fitbit CEO James Park said in a recent interview with Business Insider. "We want to make sure everyone that needs it is able to benefit from what we're doing."

Those advantages will be even more important for Fitbit as Apple becomes a more formidable rival in the health space. The company's latest Apple Watch includes an electrical heart rate sensor that can take an electrocardiogram and a new accelerometer and gyroscope that should be capable of detecting hard falls.

Fitbit's lack of a digital assistant illustrates the competitive advantage that companies like Apple and Samsung have in the smartwatch space given their ability to leverage their dominance of the smartphone market. With Apple adding features like an ECG sensor to the Apple Watch and its rumored plans to add sleep tracking, it's clear that the iPhone maker is intent on being a leader in the digital health space. Now, the question is whether Fitbit's focus on health will be enough for it to maintain its status as a leader in the wearables industry, or if it will have to innovate in other ways.