In a recent interview with The Telegraph, Tim Cook, CEO of Apple®, discussed a variety of topics, including the Apple Watch and the production of a “government-licensed health product,” to name just a few.
According to Cook, the Apple Watch has a number of clear health benefits and is fully equipped with sensors that allow users to monitor their heart rate and activity levels. It has even been given credit for saving the life of a high-school senior. While wearing an Apple Watch, the teenage football player realized that his heart rate was higher than normal. Not long after, the boy mentioned it to his athletic trainer who expressed a great deal of concern and sent him to the doctor immediately. The doctor informed the boy that his organs were basically shutting down and, had he not come in, he could have died the next day.
While this may lead you to believe that Apple could be considering the regulation of the watch, Cook actually stated that he does not want the watch to become a regulated, government-licensed health product. He told The Telegraph that the company does not “want to put the watch through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) process. I wouldn’t mind putting something adjacent to the watch through it, but not the watch, because it would hold us back from innovating too much, the cycles are too long. But you can begin to envision other things that might be adjacent to it -- maybe an app, maybe something else.”
It will be very interesting to follow Apple as it innovates its watch and potentially releases a medical product of some sort. Only time will tell if that will happen and, if it does, what the product will entail.