The Apple Health+ Platform

In the lead up to Apple’s Time Flies event tomorrow (September 15, 2020), I’ve had some thoughts about where I believe Apple will be heading in the next few years and the building blocks they have been putting into place to make a big splash in the health and wellness industry. Something that is becoming increasingly important in this era that we are living in.

Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash

For my initial thoughts before WWDC 2020 please read my article The Apple Health Revolution

WWDC 2020 and recent rumours has brought about many interesting developments and further components to push forward a narrative around health and the development of Apple Health as a wellness platform.

Before moving onto the development side of things, let’s look at the features that Apple announced during WWDC 2020 as part of its working solutions. What’s interesting is how they came up with these solutions and how this points towards future implementations and features moving forward.

• Sleep tracking — This has been available for a while through apps such as AutoSleep but Apple’s approach is to make it streamlined and easier for people to become accustomed to tracking their sleep regularly
• Dance identification parameters (use of relative motion and location to identify movement)
• Hand washing detection — This was a direct result of COVID-19 but the interesting part was how quickly they were able to use the sensors in the Apple Watch to create a hand washing detection algorithm.

There was a lot to unpack from the whole week of seminars but if we focus on health in particular, CreateML ,the development of machine learning algorithms to identify types of movement, is particularly interesting

• One of the development sessions at WWDC highlighted the possibility of using vision (Cameras) and sensor data from the Apple Watch to identify specific movements and subsequently develop programs and systems around these movement identifiers
• The Action & Vision app specifically uses the iPhone Camera to identify form and type of throwing (the app is a bean bag toss “coaching” app)

The Action & Vision App example that puts score values to the type of throw done by the player. Metrics such as speed of throw, angle of throw and distance is also recorded and calculated. All from your iPhone!

• If you want to dive deeper into the test application that was developed, click here for the video and here for the developer documentation

Well what does this all mean?

I believe Apple is putting in the building blocks to releasing a new platform in future, Apple Health+ with a particular focus of fitness and an ecosystem of powerful fitness based applications and services to help people improve their health and wellness through the Apple Ecosystem

The Apple Ecosystem is where the power in this platform lies. By utilizing all components of what Apple offers, you have a complete solution that allows you to track your workouts or even your rehab, whilst having continuous feedback and analysis of your vitals and your form to ensure you are progressing in the right direction.

Imagine this scenario, you sign up for a yoga class through your iPhone. You are then directed to switch on your TV and your Apple TV is running and ready for the start of the class. Once the class starts, you would follow the instructor on your TV, your iPhone would have it’s camera on to analyze your movements and you would have your Apple Watch on to track your heart rate and vitals. After the class, a class report could be generated that gives you a breakdown of how well you followed the class as well as your form and what needs to be improved. This would help you to improve similar to how a coach would watch your movements and adjust you, the system would provide you with similar feedback.

If we go back to the WWDC 2020 keynote, a strong hint and indicator of this connected approach was shown. It was a blink and you will miss it kind of opportunity that was shown that shows the potential of a connected system.

This screen was flashed during the WWDC 2020 keynote, the integration of Heart Rate into Fitness Videos on the Apple TV (1hr 4mins 36secs into the keynote)

By showing the fitness video with heart rate zones on screen, you can get real time visual feedback on your progression during the workout. Identifying what zone you should be in and how close you are to the required heart rate zone

Apple Health as a Platform could lead to the integration of all of these building blocks to create Apple Health+. Within this service you could have the following features

• Premium fitness videos
• Heart rate data showing up on screen so you can see your progress through a workout
• Performance Reports at the end of each session to understand how well you performed and what you need to improve on
• Full Health App integration across devices, including performance dashboards and improvements to manage your health and wellness

While I don’t expect this system to be announced at the Time Flies Event, I do believe it is closer than we think. The hardware that is announced during the event will bring us a step closer to realizing this vision of a full Apple Health+ Service focused on wellness.

But why stop there? Covid-19 has accelerated the desire and need to have remote fitness classes and tele health. Using camera based tracking, compliance to certain rehab programs can be identified for tele health. You could do your rehab at home with heart rate and motion tracking via the Apple Watch, video analysis of your repetitions and form through your iPad/iPhone and guided programs on your Apple TV for your rehab or fitness requirements. After completing the session or program, your results appear on your Health+ dashboard that can be shared with your Physician so that they can track your progress in your rehab

Perfect synergy and a true Apple Health Revolution