Apple: Steve Jobs' Healthcare Prompted Apple Watch Development

TIME published an article yesterday that offers an interesting take on Apple's long-term plans for the Apple Watch, noting that Steve Jobs' desire to improve the healthcare system indirectly inspired its development.

The article is written by technology consultant Tim Bajarin, who recently spent time at the company's headquarters and met with Apple executives involved with the Apple Watch. He asked them to explain their motivation for creating the wearable device, which was released just over a year ago.

According to Bajarin, the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs tasked his R&D teams with developing technology that would create a bridge between patients and healthcare providers, after his own experiences within the healthcare system in his battle with pancreatic cancer, which began in 2004. Jobs died from the disease in 2011.

During the intervening years, Jobs had become concerned with what he saw as a lack of connection between patients, their data, and healthcare providers, and sought to bring greater order to the system by developing a mobile platform and an ecosystem of devices that would make patient-doctor relationships more efficient and less frustrating.

During Bajarin's time at Cupertino, he was invited into Apple's dedicated health labs, where Apple has seven full-time nurses monitoring employee volunteers using advanced medical equipment as they perform various exercises in controlled conditions. Bajarin came away from his visit with the take-home message that while Apple has marketed the Watch as a fashionable timepiece, the company is committed to Jobs' original vision for the device as an enhanced health monitoring system.

The last few years has seen the company increase its focus on health and medical technology that integrates with its mobile devices. HealthKit framework debuted in 2014, allowing developers to build health monitoring software that integrates with Apple's Health app. Apple's open source framework ResearchKit was made available to developers in April 2015, enabling them to create their own iPhone apps for medical research purposes.

Just last month, Apple released CareKit iOS, another health-related framework allowing app developers to create integrated software that helps patients and doctors to better track and manage medical conditions.

You can read the TIME article here.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 6

Tags: HealthKit, Steve Jobs, ResearchKit

Buyer's Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)

Top Rated Comments

(View all)

Mac Fly (film)

50 months ago

Here comes the "fire Tim Cook" brigade. Seriously guys, if you hate Tim, Cue, Ive and Apple products there is better ways to spend your spare time than an Apple forum. Switch to Android and Windows and leave us be. You won't miss the stress and we'll get a break from constant negativity—we're all happy.

Rating: 18 Votes

smacrumon

50 months ago

And here comes the "Switch to Android and Windows" brigade.
Constructive criticisms of Apple and its executive team are important.

Rating: 13 Votes

djcerla

50 months ago

And that's the killer app for the Apple Watch, as originally envisioned, and of course, not yet deployed.

What Apple is building is a foundation for a gadget that will, one day, warn you when a heart attack is coming (among other things), saving thousands of lives. A must-have technology that will sell billions of pieces.

Rating: 12 Votes

MH01

50 months ago

Macrumors is for everyone . We are all here to share our opinions and views. Very arrogant view by some that only positive / happy comments are allowed. Maybe time for those looking for only positive posts to move on.

Reality is that since Jobs passing, Apple and the fan base is going through a transition, pretend all is fine, the rest of us are here to discuss Apple and its products in 2016, all is not positive . Please stop complaining that we dare to share our opinions, which are not always positive .

Switching to android or Windows? Seriously?? It's like telling a sports fan to switch teams when they are performing badly.....really not understanding what a fan is.

Rating: 10 Votes

japanime

50 months ago

Just finished reading the Time article. Reminds me once again of what a huge loss we all suffered when Steve passed.

Rating: 6 Votes

scaredpoet

50 months ago

And that's the killer app for the Apple Watch, as originally envisioned, and of course, not yet deployed.

The problem has always been that FDA approval is a laborious, lengthy process, and even under Steve Jobs, Apple never had the patience nor deftness to navigate that process. Nor do its investors or customers, who expect innovations every year. The FDA simply doesn't approve medical devices that quickly, and Apple Watch doing health related things beyond what it does now would make a medical device subject to that level of regulation. And I'm sure other countries, and the EU, would have their own approval and testing processes before you can sell something like that abroad.

This isn't to say the FDA shouldn't be involved. Some entity needs to make sure we're not being sold snake oil. BUt if we want Apple Watch to be anything more than it already is on the healthcare or medical side of things, we're going to be in for long waits between iterations.

Rating: 5 Votes

smacrumon

50 months ago

The Apple Watch that I desire is one that can sense and detect potential health issues and alert me in advance. If it's going to be attached to my body all day, it might as well be truly useful, otherwise it's just a glorified regular watch with the neediness and hassle of plugging it in each day for a charge.

Rating: 5 Votes

Chupa Chupa

50 months ago

Shorter: "Let's preemptively censor legitimate Apple criticism of our Lord Savior, Tim Cook, by stating up front that such comments are de facto illegitimate"?

You know it is possible to be a fan of Apple products, to want nothing to do with Android, AND not like how Tim Cook is handling the company. Or do you think all is well with Apple these days? Some of us also put our money where are mouth is and hold Apple Stock, and as fans and shareholder, yes, we will speak truth, not because we want to see Apple fail, but because we want, need, it to remain the preeminent tech bellwether.

I get you are happy to live in a sheltered cocoon where Apple products remain the epitome of tech, but some of us live in the real world and see lots of problems with the quality, freshness, and direction of Apple these days. It concerns us, because, frankly, we lived though another Jobs-less Apple era and understand how history seems to be repeating itself.

BTW even as you gnash your teeth at the thought of Cook critics, this article is about Apple playing the Jobs card. That itself is a display of Cook's lack of leadership. Jobs has been dead for years now yet Apple trots him out b/c Cook isn't too believable right now.

Rating: 5 Votes

thmshale

50 months ago

To be fair, the original commenter mentioned constant criticism. The negation of constant criticism isn't no criticism at all.

Constructive criticisms of Apple and its executive team are important.

If you really want your criticism to be constructive, you should provide it directly to Apple. Complaining on a forum will not make Apple the company you want it to be.

Rating: 4 Votes

vmachiel

50 months ago

say he passed away,as a result the Apple watch is just a prototype of what it should be.

Lol really? Steve wasn't an engineer, he set the tone. He had vision. His vision included the watch, but it's not because of his death that the watch turned out the way that it did. That's a combination of tech, costs, design, and restrictions.

Rating: 4 Votes

[ Read All Comments ]