fitness

Apple Watch will include fitness and health tracking features

Update: Fitbit statement below the fold…

If you’re in the market for a Fitbit device and you’re shopping at the Apple Store, you’ll probably have to shop elsewhere to purchase the fitness tracker. Following report from Re/Code last month that Apple planned to drop the Fitbit line of wearable devices from its Apple Store lineup, Apple has today removed the Fitbit Flex and other Fitbit products from its online store following low inventory over the past week. While its unclear why Apple is no longer selling Fitbit products through its retail channels, on the surface the move is similar to Apple’s decision to discontinue selling Bose headphones and speakers at its retail and online stores.

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Image via GigaOm

Jawbone announced two new additions to its family of wearable products tonight. The first new device is the Jawbone Up3, which sports a seven-day battery and a capacitive touch sensor on top, as well as a new set of sensors for tracking health data. The new sensors allow the Up3 to detect data such as skin temperature, respiration, or hydration, although it currently has no way to track a user’s heart rate. That feature is said to be coming in a future update.

The Up3 will cost $180 when it launches, though Jawbone has given no indication of when exactly that will be.

The Jawbone Up Move will be the cheaper of the two…

Update: Microsoft has now announced the Microsoft Band, a $199 fitness band that does everything described below. It goes on sale Thursday.

Microsoft hasn’t officially announced its wearable device, but it seems the company has accidentally published its desktop syncing client to the Mac App Store early. Whoops. The device is called the Microsoft Band (possibly Lumia Band, according to some currently non-functional support URLs) and sports a 310 x 102 resolution display.

The Microsoft privacy policy for the app lists some of the Band’s features: “Microsoft Band sensors help you keep track of things like your heart rate, steps, calories burned, and sleep.” Links in the document claiming to lead to a page with additional data, such as a list of sensors, currently lead to a 404 page.

Other key feature include the ability to get phone notifications on the Band, create reminders using Cortana, and more:

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Fitbit, makers of popular fitness tracking wearables and apps, has confirmed it currently has no plans to support Apple’s new iOS 8 Health app. After a bit of a delayed launch last month, a long list of developers have rushed to integrate support for HealthKit, Apple’s new frameworks that allow developers to share and tap into data from one central location on the user’s device: the new Health app in iOS 8. Fitbit, however, has confirmed in a few responses on its customer forums that it isn’t working on integration much to the frustration of its users that have been awaiting an update:
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Over the weekend Apple shared a short list of HealthKit apps that work with the new Health app on iOS 8 after a few apps hit the App Store on Friday with HealthKit support included. Several more iPhone apps using HealthKit to share data with Apple’s Health app on iOS 8 have become available and more are anticipated from some big names shortly. We’ll continue to update the list below over the next few weeks with iPhone apps and accessories with HealthKit and Health support to give you a comprehensive list of apps that can put your Health app to better use.
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Now that Apple has announced its entry into the fitness-tracking wearable space with the Apple Watch, Jawbone, the makers of the UP and UP24 activity trackers, has introduced a version of its UP iPhone app that works without requiring the fitness band. Instead, the new version of Jawbone’s health and fitness iPhone app adds support for Apple’s HealthKit feature and Health app on iOS 8 making UP’s software for tracking activity and sleep as well as logging meals more valuable to iPhone users wanting to fill the new Health app with data.
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In addition to FitPort and MyFitnessPal, a few more app updates with HealthKit support have become available on the App Store. These updates allow you to share health and fitness data with Apple’s new Health app on iOS 8 now that Apple has enabled HealthKit with the release of iOS 8.0.2 after issues in iOS 8.0 and iOS 8.0.1.

First up is WebMD for iPhone. Users of the WebMD iPhone app can now allow the health information service’s Healthy Target feature to communicate with data shared with Apple’s health app. The benefit to this is WebMD uses this information to create “actionable insights on your health data”. WebMD’s update was previously available on iOS 8 launch day until Apple pulled HealthKit-enabled apps due to a late-discovered bug.

Carrot Fit is another app affected by the launch day issue, but its back today with full HealthKit integration. The unconventional workout app uses data from Apple’s Health app to monitor workouts, weight, and dieting for monitoring your fitness. This is how Carrot describes Fit’s HealthKit integration:
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MyFitnessPal, an app focused on helping you track your diet habits and caloric intake, has released a new version today with support for HealthKit and Apple’s new Health app on iOS 8. The new version allows users to interface three types of data with Apple’s Health app and other HealthKit-enabled apps: meal summaries, weight syncing, and workout data from exercises. Specifically, MyFitnessPal can share meal data you add to the app with other HealthKit apps while weight and workout data can be shared back and forth with other apps.
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The New York Times is weighing in on Apple’s imminent iPhone event, corroborating past information as well as adding some new tidbits about Apple’s newest iPhones (the ‘iPhone 6’) and its brand new wearable (dubbed ‘iWatch’).

Most interestingly, it says that the iWatch will feature a flexible display. Assumedly, this will allow the product to morph to fit comfortably on user’s arms. KGI’s Ming-Chi Kuo predicted Apple’s use of a flexible panel in July. The screen is protected by sapphire glass. As 9to5Mac has reported countless times, the device will feature health and fitness tracking capabilities, for things like footsteps and heart rate. The report claims Apple has “put an enormous amount of time and money” to make the sensors track “much more accurately than existing fitness devices”.

In terms of software, the device will rely on HealthKit for health tracking and Handoff, one of Apple’s iOS 8 continuity features, to seamlessly share content between devices. Handoff could be used for sharing SMS texts between the phone and the watch, for instance. 9to5Mac discussed how Handoff might interact with Apple’s wearable a couple of months ago.

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A new report from KGI’s Ming-Chi Kuo sheds some interesting light on the iWatch specifications. Kuo believes the iWatch will feature 8 GB of internal storage, with 512 MB of RAM. Naturally, these stats are lower than current iOS devices (which have upwards of 16 GB of storage and 1 GB of RAM), but still seems high for a wearable smartwatch. This may suggest the device can act more independently from an iPhone than most assume. 8 GB of storage space is quite a lot and could be used for things like caching maps, or perhaps enable offline voice recognition.

KGI also believes the iWatch will come in two sizes, with a 1.3 inch and a 1.5 inch screen. This reflects longstanding rumours that Apple is targeting two sizes, to make it appeal to both gender’s fashion preferences. Kuo seems less sure on what materials will make up the product, but ‘guesses’ aluminium based on Apple’s tendencies to use the metal across its products. There is also mention of a gold color option, which would match with the iPhone 5s and iPhone 6’s gold varieties.

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Apple has updated its iOS 8 terms of use, according to The Guardian, to note that developers are not allowed to resell any information gained through the upcoming HealthKit framework. The HealthKit software was announced as part of a larger event earlier this year, but it was only with the most recent beta that Apple made note of this restriction.

The move is not unexpected, as it would be very much against Apple’s modus operandi to allow developers access to such crucial data without some restrictions on its use in place as a protection for users. Similar restrictions exist for the Touch ID API, which doesn’t allow developers to access user fingerprint data at all, let alone store it.

There is one exception to this rule, however…

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via <a href="http://www.twitter.com/EA_Roa" target="_blank">@EA_Roa</a>

Last month Re/code’s John Paczkowski reported that Apple plans to introduce its new iPhone models at an event scheduled for next month, and today Re/code’s Paczkowski reports that Apple will also reveal its wearable product (i.e. iWatch/iBand) alongside the new iPhones:

Apple now plans to unveil a new wearable alongside the two next-generation iPhones we told you the company will debut on September 9th. […] The new device will, predictably, make good use of Apple’s HealthKit health and fitness platform. It will also — predictably — make good use of HomeKit, the company’s new framework for controlling connected devices — though it’s not clear how broadly or in what way.

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Apple has just filed for HealthKit trademarks in both the US and Europe ahead of iOS 8’s launch this fall and in at least one filing includes watches in a list of goods that could take advantage of the health-tracking software.

While the filing in the US (filed July 31) only includes classifications for computer software and covers the HealthKit text, a filing in Europe (published yesterday) extends classifications to include health, fitness, and exercise sensors, medical devices, and watches:
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iWatch concept: Espen Oxholm

The Wall Street Journal has published a new report claiming that Apple’s upcoming entry to the smartwatch market will sport ten or more sensors for collecting health data. The report also claims that the company is working on multiple versions for the wearable device, which is expected to be released later this year.

The iWatch is expected to be a health-focused device and will likely work with Apple’s new Health application, which it debuted earlier this month at its Worldwide Developer Conference. The application and its associated framework, called HealthKit, already have built-in support for certain types of devices without the need for a third-party application.

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