"The Real Reason Apple Made the Apple Watch"

In an article written on Time, Tim Bajarin discusses why Apple decided to get into healthcare, specifically the Apple Watch. Bajarin, a long time Apple insider, says that the root of the Apple Watch started because of Steve Jobs’ health.

Apparently, Apple was looking at ways to deliver on Jobs’ goal of making their customers healthier by using technology to help monitor and track health related data points. It became clear to them that they would need some type of mobile device platform to do this. They concluded that a standard fitness tracker couldn’t do the types of things Jobs and current Apple executives really wanted to see. That’s how the Apple Watch came about.

It’s no secret that one of the Apple Watch’s strongpoints is its ability to track your health. In fact, I’d argue that it might be the best part.

When Cook unveiled the Watch back in 2014, Health was one of the three major tentpoles on which the Watch was anchored on. Health, to myself, and many others is where I think Apple plans to push the Watch over the next several years. I actually think it’s possible that not having something that tracks your health will seem very weird in five years.

Bajarin continues:

Apple is serious about the role of the Apple Watch in its customers’ health. I was recently able to visit one of Apple’s labs dedicated to sports and health. For 12 hours a day, six days a week, Apple brings in Apple employees of every shape, condition and ethnicity to do various exercises and monitor them with the most sophisticated medical systems available. Apple has seven full-time nurses in the facility I visited, using medical monitoring equipment that can determine all types of heath related data points. The lab even has special chambers that can simulate temperate and weather conditions, in which various exercises or activities can be monitored.

Apple’s goal with these lab experiments is to fine tune the sensors, radios, and various monitoring technologies included in the Apple Watch and the iPhone. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company also wants to create new features for future iterations.

This is all great news and I’m super interested in seeing where the Watch goes from here. Between HealthKit, CareKit and the built-in Health App in iOS, I think Apple has a solid foundation here to help people who want to monitor to health. Remember, we’re only a year into this. Like every other major product Apple has introduced, this is likely to get much, much better with time.

And when that happens, it’s going to be a game changer.