Apple Healthbook App Details and Images Leaked
A new post on 9to5Mac this morning reports lots of details and recreated images of Apple’s new Healthbook app, a health and wellness application that is said to be a big part of the next version of the company’s mobile operating system, iOS 8. According to the post, Healthbook will offer users tons of different tracking options, including “bloodwork, heart rate, hydration, blood pressure, physical activity, nutrition, blood sugar, sleep, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, and weight,” with each separate function represented by a color-coded card. If all that the post reports is true, Apple’s Healthbook could be a fully functional fitness solution who have a hard time keeping track of that information on their own.
Despite the recreated images of the app’s user-interface and different functions, there’s still a big mystery that has yet to be answered to any satisfaction: how will Healthbook actually record all this data? Blood sugar, in particular, could present a bit of a problem, unless the app expects users with diabetes to prick their fingers and bleed onto their iPhones.
The post speculates a few different possible options. For starters, it seems as though Healthbook could easily act as a one-stop location for third-party apps that track data to report back to. So if you already have a blood sugar tracking app, in which you put your data manually, Healthbook could take that data and issue reminders and alerts for you to check your blood sugar levels again, or incorporate that data with its other health tracking options, like its nutrition card. Likewise for weight: you probably won’t end up standing on your iPhone for it to measure you, but rather you’ll probably enter your height and weight information manually, and that information will be incorporated into other cards.
The other possible solution floated by the post is that of another device—specifically the long-rumored iWatch. Considering that Samsung has already unveiled the Gear Fit wearable at last month’s MWC, it seems likely that Apple would want to reveal its own competitor soon. Moreover, there have been more than a few patents and hires revealed over the last few weeks and months that point to Apple’s interest in fitness-tracking hardware—specifically in 2008, Apple filed a patent for health-monitoring earbuds. In 2011, sound engineer Tomlinson Holman joined Apple to apparently lead a team to predict heart attacks “by studying the sound blood makes as it flows through arteries.” And this year, sleep expert Roy J.E.M. Raymann joined the company as well.
And since the iWatch has long been thought to be in the works, the debut of Healthbook seems like the most logical opportunity to finally lift the curtain on Apple’s wearable. Will it happen at WWDC this summer?
[Source: 9to5Mac]