As Fitbit adds transaction capabilities to its fitness trackers and Pebble adds heart rate tracking to its latest line of watches, Apple CEO Tim Cook offered a reminder that healthcare has a big role to play in Apple Watch’s future. He made the comments in an interview at Startup Fest Europe in Amsterdam Tuesday, according to Business Insider.
“…the holy grail of the watch is being able to monitor more and more of what’s going on in the body,” he said in an interview with European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. “It’s not technologically possible to do it today to the extent that we can imagine, but it will be.
“The things that interest us the most are things where we can bring our ability to integrate hardware, software, services into something that’s magical, and enriches people in some way. If you look at some of the things that do not drive revenue, but have massive interest in them from our teams, health is very much one of those,” Cook said. “We’ve done some things with the Apple Watch to encourage activity, but we’ve also gotten interested in research, and launched ResearchKit.”
“We believe that health is something that is a huge problem in the world, and we think it is ripe for simplicity and a new view, and we’d like to contribute to that,” Cook said.
Apple has been recruiting health tech staff and has engaged in several healthcare collaborations. Earlier this year, AliveCor launched its Kardia Band for Apple Watch. It’s designed to function both as a heart rate monitor and as an Atrial Fibrillation Detector.
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