Leaked: Apple's plan to turn iPhone into your personal doctor - Economic Times ~ Electronic Gadgets

NEW DELHI: Smartphones can already track and record details of a user's physical activities but if Apple goes ahead with its plans, the next iPhone may come with a new app called Healthbook, which will help people manage almost all aspects of their general health.

According to screenshots leaked by 9To5Mac, a website that reports on Apple products, Apple is aiming to significantly expand on how smartphones track and record data on a user's health and fitness with Healthbook.

Currently, phones like iPhone 5S, Galaxy S4 and Nexus 5 have dedicated hardware that allows physical activity apps like Move and Runtastic Pedometer to track the movements of a user and generate reports, showing the number of steps a user took or number of calories consumed every day. But if the supposed screenshots of Healthbook are real, then Apple's iPhone will do lot more.

According to information cards part of the Healthbook app, Apple is aiming to give iPhone users ability to track physical activity, nutrition, blood sugar, sleep pattern, respiratory rate, heart rate, hydration level, oxygen saturation, weight and blood pressure.

While tracking physical activity seems simple enough - an accelerometer in the phone can sense the body movement - it is not clear how Apple will measure blood sugar or oxygen saturation for a user. Currently, the best way to measure these vital signs is through specialised health tools.

The rumours suggest that Healthbook will likely work with iWatch, a wearable gadget that Apple will reportedly launch this year. The iWatch may give Apple ability to collect more precise and accurate health data about a user. To track data related to oxygen saturation or blood sugar that requires special devices, Apple may use third-party tools that communicate with iPhone wirelessly.

Apple is not alone in turning smartphones into health tracking gadgets. With apps like Runtastic and Calorie Counter downloaded by millions, Samsung realized the health and fitness tracking potential of smartphones early. In 2013, when the company launched Galaxy S4, one of the features it highlighted was S Health, an in-built app that used the special hardware in the phone to track the physical activity of a user.

A few months later when Apple announced iPhone 5S, the company said the device had a small processor called M7, which was dedicated to tasks related to tracking the physical activity of a user. Apps can use M7 to better track a user without affecting the battery life significantly. Google's Nexus 5 too has an additional processor similar to M7 for facilitating easy tracking of a user's physical activity.

With Galaxy S5, Samsung is expanding on the health-related features. The new Galaxy phone comes with a heart-rate sensor. It also works with Galaxy Fit, a physical activity tracker that doubles up as a smartwatch, to collect and store health-related data about a user. Galaxy Fit too has a heart-rate monitor.

So far Apple has not announced any device like Galaxy Fit or even an app like S Health but the leak of Healthbook shows that health and fitness tracking is likely to be an important area for the company.

In the last one year, Apple has hired a number of fitness experts, including Jay Blahnik, who was a consultant to Nike, Roy JEM Raymann, a sleep expert, and Dr Michael O'Reilly, a health expert. The company's executives also reportedly met officials of the US Food and Drug Administration in December 2013 to discuss health and fitness related apps or products the company might be building.

For smartphone companies, health and fitness tracking is a logical next big feature in their devices. Tracking and quantifying health or physical activity is not easy. But with the ubiquity of smartphones, which are full of different kinds of sensors and can talk to gadgets like a smartwatch or a fitness band through NFC or Bluetooth Low Energy, smartphone companies believe they have a chance to give users an easy way to track their health.

Google, the company that maintains Android, too is interested in creating solutions that help a user track his or her physical activity. Recently, when it announced Android Wear, a version of Android for wearable devices, the company said that with this version of Android, users will be able to track their physical activity in a better way.

"Hit your exercise goals with reminders and fitness summaries from Android Wear. Your favorite fitness apps can give you real-time speed, distance and time information on your wrist for your run, cycle or walk," Sundar Pichai, head of Android and Chrome divisions within Google, wrote on the official blog.

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