iOS 8, iWatch, and Healthbook: Apple’s brand of tracking

In the creation of the next iteration of Apple's mobile operating system, it's said - and it's been suggested by Apple several times over the course of the last year - that they'll be pushing into the health and fitness arena. You'll have seen quite a few apps and devices doing this over the past year as well, the entire "wearables" industry making their way forward fully intent on taking advantage of the average citizen's wishes to stay in shape.

Apple's push will be, according to sources speaking with 9to5Mac, be an app ecosystem currently codenamed "Healthbook." This app and connectivity suite will allow Apple's products to collect fitness data. This data consists of bits like steps taken, miles potentially walked, and therefor calories burned.

These same pieces of data are already collected by a large cross-section of apps out today, but it'll be Apple's push specifically that connects it all to a new device: the iWatch.

The name iWatch is also, of course, just a code-name for the device that very well may be revealed before the end of this year. With Healthbook, Apple intends to make the connection to your healthy living regiment pre-installed, taking the rest of the health and fitness hardware market out to lunch without paying for the tip.



iWatch concept by Martin Hajek

It's suggested this week that Healthbook will be able to help collect and make use of vital signs from a user, this including blood-related items, hydration levels, heart rate, and of course, blood pressure. The entire suite of sensors will be accounted for in some more custom-made processor architecture, just as the iPhone 5s's M7 motion-coprocessor did, so too will new bits account for in the near future.

Also according to Mark Gurman, iOS 8 is code-named "Okemo" after a Vermont-based ski resort. It's here that the iWatch will be born, in a tie between the processor, it's co-processors, and the software which will make sense of all the data.