It is an incredibly precise timepiece, a new way to communicate, but it is also a smarter way to look at fitness. Timekeeping and communication aside, early scientific and less scientific tests show Apple Watch is actually very accurate at tracking health and fitness data.
Today, Apple's made good on its promise to make ResearchKit available to developers and medical researchers. As announced in a media release Tuesday, medical researchers can tap into ResearchKit to write custom apps while developers are permitted to contribute new research modules to ResearchKit.
ResearchKit was designed as an open source software framework to help doctors and scientists mass-gather accurate data from participants using specialized iPhone apps. With today's ResearchKit release, it's now possible to create medical apps for Android in a true open-source fashion.
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is taking a light, “almost hands-off” approach, to wearable devices like the Apple Watch that encompass non-essential health-related functions, Bloomberg reported Monday.
Apple's Watch and other new products from other vendors can be developed without aggressive regulation as the agency doesn't want to stand in the way of any technology that can motivate a person to stay healthy.
ABC News has been given an unprecedented, exclusive look at Apple's top-secret lab inside its Cupertino headquarters which the company has been using for testing health, fitness and movement tracking features of the Apple Watch.
The broadcaster has now released a short video which offers a rare glimpse into the facility. Jay Blahnik, the key Nike FuleBand developer whom the iPhone maker hired more than two years ago to help develop the Apple Watch's fitness features, can be seen in the video discussing the purpose of the lab with ABC's Rebecca Jarvis.
After sitting through Apple's “Spring Forward” media presentation from start to finish, I couldn't help but notice a slide tim Cook briefly put up, depicting an iOS version of the Apple Watch's Activity app. I immediately took to Twitter, wondering when users could expect to see the software on their iPhones.
Last evening, developer Hamza Sood tweeted out a series of screenshots of the Activity app from iOS 8.2, released for public consumption on Monday.
The app is hidden and would only appear on a user's Home screen once an Apple Watch has been connected and paired with an iPhone using the Apple Watch iOS app (which by the way cannot be deleted from the device).
Following yesterday's “Spring Forward” media event which brought us new Apple Watch details and pricing, an exclusive HBO Now launch on the now-discounted Apple TV, some interesting medical research news and a Retina-enabled twelve-inch MacBook with USB-Type C, Force Touch trackpad and silver, space grey and gold finishes, now the whole presentation can be downloaded and kept on your computer in the form of a video podcast.
Apple's Jeff Williams has just taken the stage at the Apple Watch event to talk about a new venture for the company: medical research. The SVP of Operations explains how working on HealthKit for iPhone led the Cupertino firm to release a new platform to aid in medical research, called ResearchKit.
"For all the amazing breakthroughs medical researchers have made, they still face big challenges," Williams said. "Sometimes, researchers see patients only once a quarter, making it difficult to get a complete picture of their health." And that's where ResearchKit comes in—now researchers can create apps.
Five executives from Apple met last Wednesday with Mexico’s Federal Telecommunications Institute President Gabriel Contreras and other commissioners to “discuss advances in health-care devices”, according to an agenda published on the regulator’s website relayed yesterday by Bloomberg.
Not only does the meeting signal plans to make the Watch available internationally, but also highlights efforts to ensure the Watch's ability to collect health data complies with local regulations.
The Food and Drug Administration ruled on Friday that it will be taking a hands-off approach when it comes to the regulation of health apps and software.
VentureBeat reports apps that simply convey and track data will be left alone and won't need specific approval by the FDA like apps that provide specific medical advice. This is big news for the Apple Watch when it ships in April.
According to Reuters Thursday, HealthKit trials are moving away from universities and into hospitals, with more than half of the nation's top 23 hospitals having already rolled out their own trials of the HealthKit platform, or “are in talks to do so”. HealthKit allows third-parties to integrate and interact with the user's health database on iOS 8 devices.
Fourteen of the nation's top 23 hospitals confirmed to the news gathering organization participating in the HealthKit roll-out, including at least eight of the 17 hospitals on the U.S. News & World Report's Honor Roll list, which ranks the best hospitals in the U.S.
We're an ADHD nation. Smartphones, apps, instant messages, and everything else is definitely not helping us keep focused on things for more than just a few minutes. However, one app in the App Store is trying to change that. Based on a pretty impressive eye-tracking technology, uHealth wants to help you improve your focus and attention through short brain training exercises.
We know Apple's upcoming Watch, due in March, will double as a fitness and a health tracking device, but could it be classed as a regulated medical device?
According to the preliminary guidelines published Tuesday on the United States Food and Drug Administration's website, any wearable device which wants to be considered a medical device must prove that it can treat specific diseases or conditions, as first noted by AppleInsider.
If not, any such device should be considered a general wellness gadget, not a regulated medical device.