Everyone seems to be focussed on the iWatch as Apple’s latest revolutionary product – but it turns out that the software around it might be the truly revolutionary aspect of wearables. While most “wearables” seem to focus on only certain aspects (like movement), it looks like Apple will be building a much broader platform.
Healthbook is Apple’s latest project which seems to work in a similiar fashion to the current underutilized Passbook interface. The app is divided into “cards” that keep track of key elements of your health – like heart rate, weight, activity etc. 9to5Mac managed to recreate many of the screenshots that can be expected. But where similiar products only focussed on these few elements, Apple looks like they will go a lot more in-depth. There are cards for Blood pressure, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation etc. All of these elements are typically used only by athletes, so it will be interesting to see how Apple will actually measure these things.
Our bet is that Apple would probably not require you to enter too many things yourself – after all, the benefits of the product will not be much if you have to manually enter your weight. Then again, we dont quite see Apple starting to make bathroom scales. Our bet? Apple will release an SDK which will allow manufacturers like Withings and Fitbit to actually integrate with this Healthbook service. Then again – the iWatch (or whatever it might be called) will probably play a major role in this service – and Apple might want to differentiate their product as much as possible from their competitors.
Healthbook will probably be built into the iOS8 release, so can we expect the iWatch to roll out around the same time? Only time will tell.
Source: 9to5mac
