The trend of using electronic devices that we use every day to track out health has certainly caught on. Now there are apps for smartphones that can tell you how many steps you have taken in a day or how many calories you’ve burned, by picking up data from something such as a band that you wear around your wrist. They can do much more than that, and in the future, use of our personal electronics devices for the purpose of monitoring our health will continue to increase. Apparently that’s the trend that Apple wants to cash in on, because rumor has it that iOS 8 isn’t going to be visually different from its predecessor, rather its going to be focused on mobile health.
Claiming to have heard from sources briefed on Apple’s plans, 9to5Mac claims that iOS 8 is going to come with an app called Healthbook which will monitor and store stats related to the user’s fitness, such as calories burned, steps taken as well as total miles walked. It may also have the ability to track weight loss. Healthbook will apparently also be able to monitor users’ vital signs, by tracking heart rate, hydration levels, blood pressure and other blood-related signs. Users will also be allowed to entire times when they’re supposed to take their medications as Healthbook will remind time at those times that they need to take their pills.
Earlier this week it was also rumored that Apple executives have met with the FDA about health applications, which first lead to rumors that mobile health might be a key area of focus for Apple in iOS 8. It is also believed that Healthbook will merely serve as a data collection point for the iWatch, the sensor-laden smartwatch that Apple is supposedly working on. While the company hasn’t said anything about jumping on the wearable gadget bandwagon, rumor has it that iWatch may play a key role in its bid to make advancements in mobile health. As per previous rumors, its a distant possibility that the iWatch might be launched in the second half of this year, around the time iOS 8 will be in the beta stage after being unveiled at WWDC 2014.
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