Petr Škuta In the latest interview, Apple executives Jeff Williams, Sumbul Desai and Kevin Lynch talked about the Apple Watch. We learned something about the development of smart watches and their possible future.
Williams mentioned in an interview that The Apple Watch was not originally intended as a medical aid. Everything crystallized naturally. Although focusing on healthcare wasn't in the original plan, Apple quickly understood where the path was headed.
It was very natural. Many people believe that we planned to focus on health. We had certain ideas, but we didn't know exactly where to go. Honestly, it's like we're starting to unravel a ball of thread, and the more we've unraveled, the more we've realized how big of an opportunity and impact people can have with information on their wrist.
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Williams also explained that the first health letter they received at Apple surprised all employees:
The first letter that someone's life was saved by the heart rate sensor surprised us a lot. Simply because everyone can have a watch with some heart rate measurement. But then we realized more and more how big a change it was and had a reason to do more for it. Which eventually led us down the path towards healthcare.
The future of the Apple Watch may take unexpected directions
Meanwhile, Williams and Desai both emphasized that health is just one area where the Apple Watch excels. They help a much wider user base:
Williams: Health is a very important dimension. But it's just one dimension of the Watch. It can do a lot more like tell when it's time to send a message, call, and the like. If you wanted to sell a heart rate monitor, 12 people would buy it. They'll be wearing it and you have the chance to bombard them with information about their health, which is what allowed us to have such a big impact.
Deai: That's really important. I think part of the challenge with health is that people don't want to think about it all the time, when it's just one part of the whole.
What do company representatives think about the future of the Apple Watch as a health monitoring device? Kevin Lynch said we're just getting started:
There is really a lot of information that we can learn with the current hardware. A good example is heart studies. With the current sensor in the Watch, we are able to read atrial fibrillation. And a lot more can come from that. It's just a matter of choosing the area we want to focus on and what questions we want to know the answers to.
The latest studies focus on women's health, for example, and other studies on the heart. We think we can learn a lot from these areas if we continue to focus on them. Maybe we can come up with something completely new. But even with what we have, we are only at the beginning. There is so much we can learn. There are so many areas we can focus on. And that is the most important strategic decision: where do we want to help in a meaningful way?
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Williams then added that Apple doesn't see any boundaries in healthcare that the company can't reach. However, the company wants to focus on areas that can have the biggest impact. "We'll continue to untangle the ball and see where the journey takes us," added.
You can find the entire interview in English on the website The Independent.
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Dan Pražák 