Buzzfeed has noticed that Apple's put out some job postings for people who know about biosensors and non-invasive measurements. Does that mean Apple is planning new products in the healthcare market? Yes. No. Maybe. (Pick one.) CEO Tim Cook told the Telegraph late last year that he doesn't want the Apple Watch to get so sophisticated that it draws the attention of the FDA … [Read more...]
Pebble Rolls Out Minimal Health Tracking
One of the interesting things about Pebble's smartwatch strategy is its minimalism. Feature creep has no apparent part in the company's culture; they make watches and notification devices, and motion detectors seem to have been included in later models because they're dirt cheap and take hardly any power. Now, Pebble says they'll activate the motion trackers in something … [Read more...]
Apple to Fitbit: “… And The Horse You Rode In On”
If Fitbit wanted to keep the Apple Store as a distribution channel, maybe it shouldn't have dissed HealthKit quite so hard. ReCode is reporting that the public anti-HealthKit stance will cost Fitbit its place in Apple Stores. We don't know how many units Fitbit sells through Apple, but we doubt it's a big number; BestBuy is probably far more important from a revenue … [Read more...]
Fitbit Doesn’t Plan to Play with Apple HealthKit
Fitbit is the world leader in fitness trackers, and does not appear to be especially interested in being part of the Apple HealthKit ecosystem. As our sister publication Health Tech Insider writes, Fitbit posted yesterday on its support forum that there are no plans to integrate with HealthKit. That's another piece of not-so-great news for Apple, which has had a rocky start … [Read more...]
iWatch Coming in September, says ReCode. Really. Honest. [UPDATED]
The CodeRed blog at ReCode is reporting that Apple's wearable device, whatever it turns out to be, will be unveiled on September 9, along the updated iPhones running HealthKit. We speculated as much when we first heard the September date. Keep in mind, though, that although it's a really good guess, the only out who's reporting firmly that there'll be new iPhones on … [Read more...]
No Rush Here, But Nike Finally Releases Android FuelBand App
Nike's been on the market with the FuelBand for about two years -- long enough to make a big splash with it and then more or less climb out of the pool. For all that time, the FuelBand has worked only with iOS devices. You use Android? You're not using Nike. Now that Nike has apparently stopped developing the hardware (while sticking with software and ramping up … [Read more...]
Forbes: Google Is Set to Dive Into the Health Data Market
Forbes has "multiple sources with knowledge of the company's plans" who say that Google will soon a health data aggregation service called Google Fit. Supposedly slated to launch later this month at the Google I/O conference, Google Fit is apparently a set of APIs that will link equipment like fitness trackers through the Google cloud. If it's as described, Google Fit would … [Read more...]
Apple Announces Healthkit iPhone App
It's not the iWatch (although the keynote at Apple's developers' conference is still going on), but Apple just announced Healthkit, an iPhone app that consolidates health information from your fitness tracker(s) -- Nike Fuelband very much included -- and can share it with your doctor. The Mayo Clinic is signing on, as is a long list of other health institutions. More, we're … [Read more...]