A week ago Apple premiered watchOS 9 during the WWDC 2022 keynote, with a strong focus on health and physical activity.
Now, Apple’s Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, il Vice President of Health Dr. Sumbul Design e il Vice President of Fitness Technologies Jay Blahnik they talked about watchOS 9 and the news coming later this year.
In the interview, Williams revealed that Apple wasn’t initially focusing on getting into the health industry with the Apple Watch:
“It started when we were working on the clock. And because the watch is such a personal device and you wear it, we thought there was a huge opportunity to provide people with information about their health. And when we started pulling the strings, we realized it was more than an opportunity, but we had a responsibility to do more in the healthcare sector ”.
During the WWDC 2022 keynote, Apple announced that the history of atrial fibrillation will arrive on Apple Watch with watchOS 9. Currently, the ECG app and irregular rhythm notification on Apple Watch can identify potential signs of atrial fibrillation (AFib). Left untreated, atrial fibrillation is one of the main conditions that can lead to a stroke.
With watchOS 9, users diagnosed with atrial fibrillation can activate the FDA-approved Atrial Fibrillation History feature and access important information, including an estimate of how often a user’s heart rhythm shows signs of atrial fibrillation, providing information learn more about their condition.
Dr. Desai explained how accurate this feature will be:
“As Jeff hinted, everything we do in health is based on science, and the AFib story was validated in a clinical study, with participants wearing both Apple Watch and an FDA-approved reference device. In that study, the average difference in weekly measurements between the two devices is actually less than 1%. “
Despite Apple introducing even more health information on the Apple Watch, the company believes that the device must help the relationship between patient and doctor, not replace it.
“It is clear to us that the future of healthcare still has the doctor-patient relationship at its center. We just want to improve it. We don’t think that technology in any way replaces the relationship, we just think it improves it and in the future you will have a much more aware patient and a doctor who is able to operate better because he has a better set of information to work with, “he said. Williams said.
Executives also talked about some new features coming with watchOS 9such as sleep tracking:
“Before the sleep stages, we were focused on helping people reach their sleep duration goals, since that’s really important, but we wanted to go a little further and dig into the science and give users more insight into their sleep. sleep cycles. Then, using the Apple Watch accelerometer and heart rate sensor signals, users will now be able to see their sleep stages while in REM, core and deep sleep, ”Desai explained.
What do you think of watchOS 9?