The Wall Street Journal revealed tonight that many of the planned health features that Apple intended to include in its first-generation wearable were cut from the final product.
Early reports on the progress of the device’s creation indicated that it would boast an array of sensors for measuring many different facets of a wearer’s health, but when Apple demoed the first unit last year, those sensors were nowhere to be found.
Some of those features, like the ability to track stress and blood pressure, were simply too complex to institute, or ran the risk of triggering government regulation that the company wanted to avoid. In other cases, sensor makers weren’t able to meet Apple’s standards (not an uncommon phenomenon).
The report says that the sensors for some features performed very inconsistently, with a host of unpredictable variablesâ€"ranging from tightness of the watch band to hairiness of the wearer’s armâ€"could lead to incorrect readings.
With some of the most interesting features now on the chopping block, the Journal claims that Apple’s executive team was left without much of a direction for the device and wondering what would draw customers to it.
What the team eventually settled on was the product hitting store shelves in April. It doesn’t boast as many impressive health-focused features as originally planned, and attempts to fill in the gaps by offering other attractions, such as heartbeat-based messaging and communication tools. Some of the simpler health features also made it into the finished product.
The report’s sources said that while these features were cut during the development of the first-gen model for a reason, there’s a possibility they could appear in later versions.
The Journal’s report also notes that Apple is currently looking to manufacture 5-6 million units for the April launch:
Apple is gearing up for a strong start. People familiar with the matter said the company is asking suppliers in Asia to make five million to six million Apple Watches in the first quarter.If the report is accurate, a 50%/33% split for the Apple Watch Sport and the Apple Watch would leaves 17% of the 5-6 million unitsâ€"850,000 to just over 1 millionâ€"as gold Apple Watch Edition models. However, the Journal also repeats speculation that the gold watches could sell for $4,000 or more, which would make first-quarter sales of a million gold watches hard to achieve.
One of those people said half of the first-quarter output would be for the entry-level Apple Watch Sports and one-third for the mid-tier model, which has stainless-steel casing and a watch face covered by sapphire crystal.
Apple officially unveils its new ‘Apple Watch’ wearable
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The truth is that Apple has NOT changed or removed the health features of the Apple Watch at all!
In fact, Apple’s extensive web site section on the Apple Watch, which goes into mass production soon, spends a good deal of text, images, and video highlighting the important health features.
A quote from Apple’s website:
“With a custom heart rate sensor, it’s built to know you better.
The wrist is a convenient area for collecting data about your physical activity, a task Apple Watch is designed to perform throughout the day. On the back of the case, a ceramic cover with sapphire lenses protects a specially designed sensor that uses infrared and visible-light LEDs and photodiodes to detect your heart rate. Apple Watch uses this sensor, along with an accelerometer and the GPS and Wiâ€'Fi in your iPhone, to measure all kinds of physical movement, from simply standing up to actively working out. This allows Apple Watch to provide a comprehensive picture of your daily activity, suggest customized goals, and reward you for reaching personal fitness milestones.â€
The WSJ article is written by someone who doesn’t work at Apple, and has no real knowledge of the Apple Watch, but is just trying to plant a spurious rumor about the company.
HealthKit was developed for information the watch would be detecting. breathing rate, oxygen levels, glucoselevels, hydration levels, sleep and many more. Apple couldn’t get the sensors to work correctly so they dumped them to get a device released and went with fitness tracking and gave up on health.
Mike, you obviously didn’t watch the September presentation at all.
Of course both the heart rate sensor and the health tracking features and apps were announced VERY CLEARLY “announced†and demonstrated.
Even today, just several weeks before the Apple Watch goes on sale, Apple’s extensive web pages on the Apple Watch continue to highlight all of the health sensors and features in great detail.
It is unbelievable that you would say “none of these sensors were announcedâ€!
Mike is refering to how the Apple Watch was intended as health device and ended up being a fitness tracker and fashion device.
In any event, while people in the health industry might see the news in this article as a disappointment, for I imagine a greater number of users its probably a non issue. Having health data for many users is a nice to have, but is probably secondary to being able to run applications and carry out other interactions on the device.
Next up, products with no official release dates have been delayed!â€
I expect better from the WSJ and 9TO5Mac.
hopefully someday we will get what Apple originally wanted to do and worked 4 years on.
Tracking glucose levels, stress, blood pressure and other vitals would been very compelling to many people who want an active roll in their health. It would let doctors and hospitals more closely monitor their patients health.
I’m sure one day Apple will release a health oriented device and think they should have waited to release the first generation device until they could reliabl make the device.
Doodling hearts and sharing heartbeats are lame and the basic fitness tracking is a moor disappointment.
Seriously 5 minutes of showing doodling and sharing heartbeats shows Apple totally had no clue what it wanted to do with this after they pulled the health sensors.
Now they we clearly focussing on fashion. Deciding rather to lit carpet by the Watch displays in Apple Stores.
Apple could changed the health care industry and is now placing safes in stores and remodeling displays to sell a fashion accessory.
Apple could done this with a new nano, not watch with 4 sensors. Sometimes devices needs years of tinkering before release like the iPad. The Apple Watch as shown off in October was a let down and also clear Apple was unsure what to do with it. Gone are the tent pole features of past devices used as selling points.
The biggest sign Apple is lost on the Apple Watch is HealthKit. It has built in software for stress, sleeping, glucose, oxygen levels and many other health features Apple wanted. Apple should slowt on the device until the batteries and sensors were right. Sounds like recharging through a half a day of use is another sign things are not ready.
And thank goodness Apple followed this advice in releasing the iPhone only after securing more than one carrier and ISD support. Oh, wait a minute…
anybody know if, say, the jawbone up 3, can have these problems, too?
A fashion statement with simple fitness tracking is not for me and is not a groundbreaking product. Yes it will sell millions. But it is t a game changer, it leaves room for other companies to come in a make a true health tracker. Sensing glucose, blood pressure, sleep, oxygen levels and all on a wrist worn device would been groundbreaking. There were rumors insurance and health companies were going to supply the watches to members for constantly wearing it.
Prevents in this report it says Appe saw a health ordinated watch as a black hole and scapped it and yet says the features and sensors could arrive in a later model. I think Apple totally fucked up on this one. instead of focusing on self driving autonomous electric vehicles focussing on device that help people truly track their help would save life’s and hundreds of millions of dollars on medical expenses. Steve Jobs died of a disease that wrecked his nor ones, glucose and many other vitals that could be tracked by an Apple Watch. Apple engineers owe that to Steve Jobs and millions of people with diseases that need or should be constantly monitored.
Heart rate and logging how much you move during a day is fitness. Tracking blood pressure, glucose, oxygen levels, breathing rate and body temperature is health tracking.
One is logging physical,activity the other is logging vitals and overall health.
I still hope Apple releases a FDA approved version later this year with more sensors. I know I won’t buy one until health tracking is a min feature and not fitness and activity. Minus heart rate any current IPhone can do the activity and fitness tracking.