Apple Watch could soon track your sleep and fitness levels
The smartwatch would gauge how healthy you are, not just feed you raw data.
The Apple Watch is billed as a fitness-focused device, but it doesn't really make sense of fitness data -- you're supposed to interpret the numbers yourself. However, Apple might soon give its wristwear some added smarts. Bloomberg sources claim that the Apple Watch will get apps that track sleeping patterns and fitness levels. It's not certain how the sleep tracking would work (most likely through motion), but the watch would gauge your fitness by recording the time it takes for your heart rate to drop from its peak to its resting level.
It's not certain when you'd get the apps. Apple, for its part, hasn't commented. However, neither of these new features would require new hardware. Sleep tracking wearables have been around for a while, and the fitness measurement would just be a matter of parsing the heart rate data you can get from any Apple Watch.
If real, the move would be part of a broader effort to transform Apple's overall approach to health. Reportedly, it wants its HealthKit framework to help "improve diagnoses," not just collect data. You and your doctor could watch out for telltale signs of a condition, or measure your progress on the road to recovery. This would undoubtedly help Apple's bottom line (you'd have to use at least an iPhone to get this information), but it could also help you make important life decisions.
