Apple laid out its far-reaching goals for the health and wellness tech built into iPhone and Apple Watch in a report issued Wednesday. It details how Apple intends to develop technology to support personal health, medical research, and patient care.
“We believe passionately that technology can play a role in improving health outcomes,” said Apple’s chief operating officer, Jeff Williams, in a statement.
Health is a focus of Apple Watch and iPhone
Apple’s big push into health and wellness all started back in 2014 with the Health app, which gave users an easy way to track steps taken. The debut of Apple Watch in 2015 was a major step forward in Apple’s health-related offerings. Now an iPhone can securely store users’ health records. And the Apple Watch boasts a growing array of health sensors.
The company on Wednesday revealed its four goals in this area:
1) Giving users a central and secure place to store and view their health data in the Health app,
2) offering features that enable Apple Watch to act as an intelligent guardian for users’ health,
3) offering features that help users improve their everyday health and fitness for better health outcomes, and
4) fueling innovative third-party health and fitness apps with developer tools.
“We believe passionately that technology can play a role in improving health outcomes and encouraging people to live a healthier day, and we are excited about the many ways users are benefiting from our health and fitness features, and by the ways third-party developers, institutions, and organizations are using Apple technology to advance health and science,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer, in a press release.
Apple works with the medical community
When developing new health and wellness features, Apple works with medical experts from leading research institutions to be sure the products are based in solid science.
And this has had a side effect. “Our close collaboration with institutions has led to our development of features that leverage our ecosystem to help researchers advance science and healthcare providers deliver better and more efficient care,” Apple said in the report.
Apple and Apple device users have worked with multiple universities on medical studies examining heart health, hearing and more.
The full report, “Empowering people to live a healthier day,” is available on Apple’s website.
