Apple is working on an artificial intelligence-based health coaching service and new emotion-tracking technology, its latest attempt to lock users in with health and wellness features.
The new coaching service – codenamed Quartz – is designed to keep users motivated to exercise, improve their eating habits and help them sleep better, according to people familiar with the project. The idea is to use AI and data from an Apple Watch to make suggestions and create coaching programs tailored to specific users, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the initiatives have not yet been announced.
The move is part of a larger health campaign for the company, which has put these features at the heart of its devices, particularly the Apple Watch. Its latest efforts also include an extension of the health app to the iPad and features that could help visually impaired users.
An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the Cupertino, Calif.-based company’s plans.
The Quartz initiative is reminiscent of LumiHealth, a wellness and coaching service launched by Apple in partnership with the Singapore government in 2020. One difference is that the Singapore-based program could pay out monetary rewards to users who stayed healthy. health, while Apple’s new in-house service will incur a monthly fee – like many of its other digital offerings. It will also be its own app.
The service is scheduled for next year, but could eventually be canceled or postponed. The project is supported by several Apple groups, including its health, Siri and IA teams, as well as its services division.
In the shorter term, Apple plans to roll out an iPad version of the iPhone health app for the first time. The change, which will allow users to see EKG results and other health data in a larger format, is expected to be included in iPadOS 17 later this year.
The hope is that an iPad version will boost the app’s popularity in healthcare settings, where tablets have already made inroads. The app is central to the company’s health efforts, serving as a repository for fitness data collected by the Apple Watch and outside health records. It also serves as a portal for users to share information with their doctors.
Tools for tracking emotions and managing vision conditions, such as myopia, will be added to the health app this year. The initial release of the emotion tracker will allow users to record their mood, answer questions about their day, and compare results over time. But in the future, Apple hopes the iPhone will be able to use algorithms to determine a user’s mood through their speech, the words they’ve typed and other data on their devices.
Apple aims to unveil the new iPad app and tools for managing emotions and vision in June at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. But the coaching service, a bigger step, won’t be announced this year, people say.
The company’s upcoming mixed reality headset, which is also slated to debut in June, will also play into the health and wellness strategy. A feature will allow users to meditate while wearing the device, and an enhanced version of Apple’s Fitness+ workout service is in the works.
The company’s health efforts began publicly in 2014 with the launch of a dedicated app, then quickly expanded with the Apple Watch a year later. Health strategy has become essential for the company, and Apple has added new features to take EKGs, analyze atrial fibrillation, detect falls and track sleep. Work has become a major selling point for its smartwatch.
The mood and emotion tracking features are separate from a new journaling app that Apple is planning for this year. This app is not meant to be a health feature, the people said, and Apple is unlikely to position it as such.
Instead, the app is designed as an extension of the company’s Find My service and other location-based features. It stems from a desire to add more social networking elements to these functions. Users could use the app to, for example, write a journal entry about their walk to work. The Wall Street Journal previously reported on the journaling app.
Apple plans to expand the health push by bringing a basic form of blood pressure monitoring to its watch within the next few years, Bloomberg News reported. The feature likely won’t show the exact diastolic and systolic numbers, but rather tell an Apple Watch wearer if they may have high blood pressure. The user would then be prompted to try a conventional blood pressure monitor or consult a doctor.
Apple is also working on noninvasive glucose monitoring as part of a secret team called the Exploratory Design Group. The technology, which would take a blood sugar reading using sensors rather than a finger prick, has been in development for more than a decade, and the company has made recent progress. He is now working on shrinking the system down to an iPhone-sized device. The company eventually aims to make the technology even smaller, integrating the sensor into a future Apple Watch.