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Nike upset hypebeasts with accidental Android-exclusive SNKRS drop
Nike introduced its shoe-selling app SNKRS in 2016, but it wasn't until nearly a year later that it rolled out an Android version. Even today, some of the app's best features (like a way to buy sneakers using augmented reality) are exclusive to iOS. Which, as you can imagine, causes frustration among Android users. But, today, the tables were flipped, even if it may not have been intentional. During Thursday's surprise launch of Nike's "Queen" Blazer Mid, a collaboration with streetwear designer Virgil Abloh, his brand Off-White and tennis superstar Serena Williams, SNKRS users on Android were able to get access to the pair before their iOS counterparts. And, as you might expect, hypebeasts with an iPhone were not happy.
For Nike, augmented reality is the perfect way to sell hyped sneakers
Buying limited-edition shoes is complicated and not as fun as it should be. The rise of violence in sneaker culture (people have been murdered for a pair of Air Jordans) led companies like Nike to launch hyped products almost exclusively on digital channels. But selling sneakers on a website, or doing raffles on Twitter, came with challenges of its own. That's because resellers started using bots, automated computer scripts, to buy or reserve pairs faster than a human could. If you couldn't enter an address and credit-card number in a matter of seconds, whatever you were hoping to get was going to be sold out.
