APPLE Inc took the wraps off a mobile application that can collect and analyze users’ health data, part of a suite of new features outlined for its computing and mobile software, at its yearly developers’ conference on Monday in the United States of America.
This is even as the firm claimed to have sold over 800 million iPhone devices globally.
The mobile health solution called “Healthkit,” has been designed to pull together data such as blood pressure and weight, collected by a growing plethora of healthcare apps on the iPhone or iPad.
The American firm will work in tandem with Nike Inc, a major player in fitness tracking, and the Mayo Clinic on the new feature, which will be included with the latest versions of Apple’s mobile software.
However, Apple, which will discuss new software features with the thousands of developers gathered in San Francisco this week, did not elaborate on Healthkit’s features and capabilities.
The news follows arch-rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd’s announcement last week of a mobile health-data store called SAMI (Samsung Architecture Multimodal Interactions).
Monday’s event in downtown San Francisco, a yearly pilgrimage of sorts for the large and growing Apple developer community, was short of major surprises.
Every year, the iPhone maker and rival Google Inc, whose Android mobile devices comprise an estimated four-fifths of all smartphones sold globally, show the latest software enhancements to thousands of prospective developers.
Chief Executive, Tim Cook, at the opening of the conference said the iPhone maker has sold more than 800 million mobile devices. Some 130 million customers bought their first Apple mobile device in the past 12 months, he added.
Apple described how its latest “Yosemite” Mac software, which comes on the heels of its well-reviewed “Mavericks” release, will come with a new Internet storage application, and allow users to pick up calls and see text messages relayed to iPhones.