According to Apple Inc.’s Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, the company’s greatest contribution to society will ultimately be its contribution to health care.
It is an interesting stance given how Apple is famously known for its consumer devices. Even more interesting about Cook’s statement is that the iPhone maker has struggled to live up to the dream of becoming a “medical lab on your wrist,” and its Health app does not compare favorably woth its contemporaries.
However, the CEO is bullish that his company is about to turn a corner as Apple is set to make its biggest push into the health care sector to date with a revamped app and AI doctor service.
Apple is working on initiatives to transform the health sector
According to a Bloomberg report, Apple has initiatives that could make big changes to the health industry. This includes a 15-year-plus project that aims to create a noninvasive glucose monitor, an idea that reportedly originated while the company’s founder, Steve Jobs, was still a living legend.
The glucose monitor works thanks to a sensor that will be added to the Apple Watch. This sensor will inform users if they are prediabetic, which could potentially help them avoid developing a full-blown diabetic condition.
The project is currently in progress, and it has reportedly crossed several key milestones. However, the company is still far from having the finished feature.
There have also been some issues with other health sensors, including those for blood oxygen and hypertension. The former was allegedly removed from the Apple Watch because of a patent fight while the latter’s development has been stunted due to various roadblocks.
While they work all that out, Apple’s health team has shifted its attention to something they believe could have a quicker payoff and help the company finally make good on Cook’s vision.
The initiative is titled Project Mulberry, and it will see Apple do a complete revamp of its health app, complee with the integration of a health coach. The service would be powered by a new AI agent that would replicate — to some extent — the behaviors of a real doctor.
Talks of the plan first surfaced in 2023 when it was code-named Project Quartz. There have been many twists and turns since then, and the effort has roped in other parts of Apple, including its artificial intelligence group.
With that alignment in effect, development is now in full effect with a release due as early as iOS 19.4, an update scheduled for the spring or summer of next year.
Apple devices may monitor users for their own good
The health app already collects data from Apple devices, and that practice is expected to continue. The AI coach will have access users’ information, which it will use to provide tailor-made recommendations about ways to improve health.
As it stands, the AI agent is being trained with data from physicians that Apple has on its payroll. The company is also looking to bring in outside doctors, including professionals in sleep, nutrition, physical therapy, mental health and cardiology, to make videos.
Those videos will help the AI convey its recommendations easily as the content would serve as explainers to users about certain conditions and how to make lifestyle improvements.
For instance, if the health app identifies trends of poor heart-rate, a video explaining the risks of heart disease could pop up.
Apple plans to open up a facility near Oakland, California, that will give the physicians freedom to shoot their video content for the app. It’s also looking to find a major doctor personality to serve as a sort of host for the new service, which some within the firm have tentatively dubbed “Health+.”
Another huge capability the revamped app will have is food tracking, an area that Apple has up until now mostly avoided even though the current health app allows users to enter data for things like carbohydrates and caffeine.
Doubling down on food tracking would mean Apple products would be a challenge to services such as MyFitnessPal and, to some extent, weight-management apps like Noom as the doctor-like AI agent will be able to help users with the nutrition features as well.
There are also plans to incorporate features that would tap into the cameras on Apple devices. This would reportedly let the AI agent study users’ workouts and give pointers for improving their technique. It could eventually be integrated into other services, including the existing Fitness+ platform.
The project is being overseen by Sumbul Desai, a doctor who has been in charge of running Apple’s health team for several years. He hopes to avoid prior flops suffered by the division, such as a failed app for pairing users with doctors to answer simple medical questions.
Jeff Williams, the company’s chief operating officer, also has a big part to play, leaving no doubt as to how important the work is for Apple’s health group.
Talk of Apple’s push into health comes after its CEO was sighted in DeepSeek’s hometown
Apple has a lot in the works, especially regarding AI, and the company needs all the help it can get. Perhaps that is why the company’s CEO Tim Cook made an unexpected stop in Hangzhou, home of the AI startup DeepSeek, during his first official visit to China this year.
His visit comes as Apple smartphone sales in China are declining due to competition from local tech giants.
During his visit, Cook reportedly met with developers at partner Zhejiang University in the tech-infused city of Hangzhou. The startup revealed it donated RMB 30 million to support China’s next generation of developers and will collaborate with the university to launch the Apple Mobile App Incubation Fund.
The fund will provide technical training and courses in app development, product design, marketing, and business operations. Zhejiang University is known to have produced some of China’s top tech talent, including Liang Wenfeng, the founder of DeepSeek.
According to Apple, prior to this initiative, it had donated RMB 50 million to Zhejiang University over the past decade to support the Mobile Application Innovation Competition.
Cook’s visit coincide with claims that phone sales are struggling because the products currently lack AI functionalities that are now par for the course in competitor devices.
This has forced the iPhone maker to purportedly seek partnerships with Chinese firms to improve its AI offerings. In February, Alibaba Chairman Joe Tsai revealed that Apple has partnered with his company to bring AI-powered iPhones to China.
“They want to use our AI to power their phones, so we’re very fortunate and extremely honored to be able to do business with a great company like Apple,” Tsai said at a conference in Dubai.
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