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| The Apple Watch--Courtesy of Apple |
"One of the biggest surprises people are going to have when they start using it is the breadth of what it will do," Apple ($AAPL) CEO Tim Cook recently said about the upcoming Apple Watch. Too bad the smartwatch's functionalities won't include stress monitors, an electrocardiogram or a blood pressure monitor.
Much has been made about the company's lobbying efforts and meetings with the FDA, but it turns out the health snafus are also a result of engineering challenges. The various monitors didn't perform well on people with dry skin or hairy arms, and performance also depended on the fit of the watch, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Instead, the (non-medical) device will contain a simple pulse-rate monitor. It will compete with other smart watches like the Moto 360, which has an optical heart-rate sensor and pedometer. But none of those competitors can match the Apple Watch's buzz, or its high price tag: $349.
Nor can it match the company's lobbying prowess. The Silicon Valley bigwig has stepped up its engagement with the feds, seeking not only to learn by meeting with the FDA, but also to change the rules via a lobbying effort that cost nearly $3 million last year.
But the alphabet soup of Washington, DC, federal agencies have so far impeded the company's med tech and healthcare ambitions, though more so in the case of the iPhone. In 2013, the FDA told Apple that if it includes a glucometer for diabetics among its mobile medical applications, the product would be regulated by the agency, but perhaps not if it was marketed to promote better nutrition. And last year the Federal Trade Commission discussed the privacy concerns surrounding the company's plan to collect and use health care data with top Apple officials.
The Wall Street Journal says that 720,000 smartwatches powered by Google's Android Wear sold in the last half of 2014. ABI Research estimates the Apple Watch sales will be 11.8 million in 2015.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that 5 Apple executives met with regulators in Mexico to "discuss advances in health-care devices." Many medical devices are available in Europe before the U.S. Could the new Apple Watch or iPhone health features debut in Mexico?
Wherever the next generation of mobile health innovations arise, the engineering challenges mean they'll likely come out on a smartphone first, rather than a smartwatch.
- read the article in the Wall Street Journal
- and the article in Bloomberg