This Year’s Health Game Changers: iOS 8 And The iWatch

We recently wrote a series of articles about the latest specialists hired by Apple to work on its upcoming smartwatch, the iWatch. We first told you that the iWatch may include biosensors, a conclusion based on the fact that Apple hired biomedical specialists Ravi Narasimhan, who previously worked at Vital Connect and Nancy Dougherty from Sano Intelligence. Nancy Dougherty worked on a “revolutionary health monitoring product that will reveal new insights about stage zero care“, which is rumored to be an unobtrusive blood reading device, a patch that analyzes your blood and can send the results to any compatible device for monitoring. Ravi Narasimhan was the head of Vital Connect’s research and development division and he also worked on a wearable medical device.

Last year in August, Apple also hired medical expert Michael O’Reilly, who previously worked at Masimo Corporation, “a global medical technology company that develops and manufactures innovative noninvasive patient monitoring technologies, including medical devices and a wide array of sensors“. At Masimo, Michael O’Reilly helped develop the  iSpO2 Pulse Oximeter, an device that can be paired to an iPhone 4S (or lower, as it uses the 30 pin dock connector) to measure oxygen saturation and pulse rate (you can ). Another specialist to join the iWatch team was Roy J.E.M Raymann who previously worked as senior scientist at Philips Research. He is an expert in sleep tracking, which suggests that the iWatch will include a dedicated sleep tracking solution.

Recent rumors suggest that the iWatch would be paired with the upcoming version of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 8. It seems that one of the main features of the eigth iteration of iOS will be a strong emphasis on health and fitness monitoring. Given the fact that the iWatch will most definitely include fitness and health tracking sensors, it’s easy to see how iOS 8 is developed to go hand in hand with the iWatch as the game changer in the health and fitness tracking industry.

Fitness and health monitoring

As you may have heard, Apple is currently developing an app code named “Healthbook“. What little is known about Apple’s upcoming health app is that it will released together with the eigth iteration of iOS and it will track stats like burned calories, miles walked ans how many steps you have taken, all thanks to the  M7 motion coprocessor. The app is also said to be able to track your weight. The Healthbook app fits in the same category as other fitness trackers, like Fitbit or Nike’s free activity tracking app, but it seems that its advantage will be represented by the fact that it will be paired with the iWatch, a wearable device that will include next gen hardware.

We mentioned that the iWatch is very likely to integrate a few biosensors judging by the past experience of some of the recently hired specialists. In fact it’s not just likely, but a certainty at this point, since the Healthbook app will be able to track the user’s blood pressure, heart rate, hydration levels and maybe even analyze his blood (based on Nancy Dougherty past experience). If the iWatch will be able to analyze the user’s blood, then it will be more than just a smartwatch; it will be a very important device for diabetic population as it could analyze the glucose levels of the user. Another health related feature of the Healthbook app is that users can tell the app about their medication and the app will set up reminders for the user at certain intervals, to remember to take his / hers pills. It will likely integrate with iOS’ current Reminders app.

Healthbook’s user interface

The health monitoring app has a difficult task: it needs to pair the upcoming version of iOS with the iWatch and for this, it needs an user interface that would work well on a small wearable device, such as the iWatch. It seems that Healthbook’s user interface will be similar to that of the Passbook app, which allows users to store coupons, boarding passes, event tickets, store cards, ‘generic’ cards and other forms of mobile payment. As with Passbook’s user interface, Healthbook’s user interface will be formed by a stack of cards that represent diverse fitness activities or health related activities. Below, you can see a mockup of the Healthbook app icon.

Pairing the iWatch with iOS 8

As we mentioned above, the iPhone 5S was released with the M7 motion coprocessor, which is basically a dedicated chip that uses its accelerometer and gyroscopes to process motion data directly, without involving the A7 System on Chip. While the M7 motion coprocessor is quite powerful and can collect and store motion data, the iPhone 5S does not have any health tracking sensors so it cannot measure the user’s glucose level for example. And we don’t expect the iPhone 5 to feature biosensors either. But we do think the iWatch will include biosensors.

And that’s exactly why analysts believe the next iOS version is being developed especially for the still unofficial smartwatch from Apple. As we said, the iWatch will likely be able to track some health parameters, such as blood pressure, heart rate, hydration levels and it may even be able to analyze the user’s blood. The iWatch and the eighth version of iOS will work together when it comes to health monitoring: the iWatch will collect data via its various biosensors while the Healthbook app integrated in iOS 8 will store and interpret the data and it seems that Apple will also pair its upcoming smartwatch with its smartphone line, the iPhone, not unlike Samsung has paired its Galaxy Gear smartwatch with its Galaxy line of devices.

There are rumors that suggest the specialists in medical wearable devices that Apple hired recently have worked on miniaturizing biosensors and integrating many of them inside a single chip. Based on what rumors we have about iOS 8 and the Healthbook app, the health related stats that the iWatch will track are blood pressure, hydration, heart rate (that’s besides the fitness tracking capabilities that we already mentioned, like miles walked ans how many steps you have taken). There are also rumors that the iWatch may be able to track your glucose levels which is not out of the realm of possibility considering that Nancy Dougherty worked on a similar devices at Sano Intelligence.

Tim Cook, Apple CEO, mentioned that this year “the whole sensor field is going to explode [...] It’s a little all over the place right now… with the arc of time, it will become clearer”. We expect iOS 8 to be released in Fall 2014 and many analysts believe the iWatch will be released together with the eighth iteration of Apple’s mobile OS. Even Tim Cook hinted at the iWatch last year in a speech to his employees, when he said “We have a lot to look forward to in 2014, including some big plans that we think customers are going to love [...]”. However, this is in no way or form confirmation that the iWatch is going to be released this year as Tim Cook could have been talking about other products that Apple is going to unveil and release this year.

There are already many third party devices that connect to the iPhone and perform different health monitoring related functions. We already mentioned the iSpO2 Pulse Oximeter, but there are also body weight scales that connect to the iPhone, blood pressure monitoring devices, pedometers, glucose meters and even heart rate monitoring devices that connect to the iPhone. Some of these accessories are even promoted by Apple. Healthbook and the iWatch are probably going to incorporate the functions of these devices in a single device and app, which will make it easier to manage for the users as they won’t have to use n devices anymore – an all in one wearable device paired with the Healthbook app would be very successful in our opinion.

Recent hirings

We began this article telling you about some of the recent people Apple hired to work on its upcoming smartwatch. We already talked about biomedical specialists Ravi Narasimhan, who previously worked at Vital Connect and Nancy Dougherty from Sano Intelligence. Both of them previously worked on non invasive health monitoring devices. We also told you about medical expert Michael O’Reilly who previously worked at Masimo Corporation and helped develop the  iSpO2 Pulse Oximeter which is able to measure the user’s oxygen saturation and pulse rate. Another specialist that joined the iWatch team is sleep tracking expert Roy J.E.M Raymann who previously worked as senior scientist at Philips Research.

Last year Apple also hired fitness expert Jay Blahnik who previously worked for Nike as a fitness advisor. Apple also hired Dr. Todd Whitehurst sometime last year, who previously was vice president at Senseonics where he “led the product development team in the development of an implantable continuous glucose monitor system”. Other important members of the iWatch team are Kevin Lynch (Apple’s vice president of Technology), Bob Mansfield (hardware executive) and James Foster (senior hardware engineering manager).

iOS 8

The seventh iteration of iOS was unveiled last year, on June 10th, during the opening keynote of the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) and it was named the “biggest change to iOS since the introduction of the iPhone,“. The most noticeable change was that of the user interface which dismissed skeumorphic elements in favor of a new flat graphic design. Considering how much of a change was iOS 7 in terms of user interface, it is pretty safe to assume that Apple won’t change it again for the eighth iteration of its mobile Operating System. There will probably be some tweaks here and there, but it’s not realistic to expect another huge redesign regarding the user interface of iOS 8, codenamed Okemo.

Ever since it replaced Google Maps based app with Apple’s own Maps app (which was poorly received by both critics and users), Apple has continued to improve the Maps app to bring it to a high enough standard of quality. The initial version of the Maps app was released with inaccurate or incomplete data, no support for transit maps, and low-quality satellite imagery. Most of these aspects were improved but in house transit, a feature that was expected to be released together with iOS 8 may not actually be ready for the next iteration of iOS. Unnamed sources claimed that mapping functionality will be a feature included with iOS 8 as it will be a very important part of the iWatch.

If all these rumors are true and the next version of Apple’s mobile Operating System, iOS 8, will feature a strong emphasis on health and fitness monitoring so that it can go hand in hand with the iWatch, which is rumored to include fitness and health tracking sensors. If Apple will pair its upco9ming wearable computer with iOS 8 and if all (or most) of the features that we speculate about in this article will be implemented in the upcoming hardware and software products from Apple, then we may assist to the beginning of a new era in the smartwatch industry. What do you think about the pairing of Apple’s upcoming smartwatch, the iWatch, with iOS 8? Leave your comments in the dedicated section below.