Apple Watch Series 10 可監測血壓並偵測睡眠呼吸中止症

從 2024 年開始，新一代 Apple Watch 可能會擴展健康追蹤功能，能夠偵測血壓和睡眠呼吸中止症。

新的健康追蹤功能將於 2024 年推出 | 圖片來源：Ricardo Resende / Unsplash

據稱，高血壓檢測的第一個版本只能檢測血壓變化，並為使用者提供日記，以「記下高血壓發生時發生的情況」。根據彭博社的一份新報告，未來的版本將提供精確的血壓測量，但仍然「遙遠」。

Apple Watch 將於 2024 年偵測血壓與睡眠呼吸中止症

至於睡眠呼吸中止症檢測，該功能是依靠機器學習來分析睡眠和呼吸模式來估計某人是否患有這種情況。執行長庫克強調，他的公司在改善人類健康方面的工作很可能成為「對人類的最大貢獻」。

馬克古爾曼，彭博：

蘋果的努力幫助健康追蹤成為主流。它為 2024 年制定了誘人的路線圖，包括手錶的高血壓和睡眠呼吸中止症檢測功能以及 AirPods 的助聽功能。還計劃將即將推出的 Vision Pro 耳機轉變為健康和健身設備。使用人工智慧的付費健康教練服務的工作仍在繼續。

古爾曼早些時候報導稱，血壓監測被推遲到 2024 年。同時，蘋果公司仍在持續開發無刺血糖感測器。

蘋果公司在非侵入式葡萄糖感測器方面的工作

來自彭博社的文章：

2011 年，一家名為 Avolonte Health 的新創公司在加州帕洛阿爾託的一個小型辦公園區開設了商店。該公司在一棟平淡無奇、佈滿安全攝影機的兩層建築內運作。面試那裡的職位的工程師甚至沒有被告知他們要做什麼。然而，一旦新員工進入實驗室，他們就知道自己將試圖徹底改變糖尿病照護。

該公司最初希望在最初的 Apple Watch 中加入血糖感測器，但這種可能改變糖尿病患者生活的技術當時還沒有實現，而且現在仍然沒有。

和：

Avolonte 不僅僅是一家醫療保健公司。這是蘋果公司的一個項目，其使命直接來自史蒂夫‧賈伯斯。蘋果的聯合創始人兼時任執行長因患胰腺癌而去世，該癌症將在當年年底奪走他的生命，他責成一群關鍵管理人員開發一種非侵入性血糖監測儀。

無法保證這種感測器能夠可靠地工作，但蘋果並沒有放棄，每年在葡萄糖感測器上花費「數千萬美元」。該項目目前由蘋果晶片設計部門的探索設計小組（XDG）領導，但這種難以捉摸的傳感器預計「至少在幾年內」不會推出。

An opportunity to help people

Gurman talked with Bob Mansfield, an important former executive at Apple charged with leading the company’s hardware engineering and technologies groups.

Mansfield said:

Health is a world of opportunity to help people. The Apple Watch’s ability to play a key role in health was one of the things that excited us most about building it in the first place. Compared to today, the earliest technologies built in weren’t very good. It is exciting for me to see how this idea has and continues to develop.

Jony Ive designed blood pressure cuffs

Gurman mentions in his report some of the health projects that Apple killed over the years, including a Jony Ive-designed blood pressure cuffs:

Other key projects were nixed during development. Apple investigated building a nutrition tracker into its Health app and looked into selling a suite of peripherals for the Apple Watch, including a bathroom scale and an Ive-designed blood pressure cuff that didn’t need to inflate.

Apple also toyed with embedding health sensors into watch bands:

The company prototyped watch straps with sensors that gather data from the underside of the wrist and researched both a bed-mounted sleep tracker and a nightstand device with sensors to monitor users overnight before pushing the technology into the watch itself.

Then, there was Project Fennel, another initiative that Apple discontinued.

Making the Apple Watch compatible with Android

Project Fennel was supposed to make the Apple Watch, along with the Health app, compatible with the Android platform. Ultimately, executives killed the initiative over business concerns. “If you gave up the watch to Android, you would dilute the value of the watch to the iPhone,” a source said.

I also found this interesting:

The distinction between health and health care defines much of what Apple will be doing for the foreseeable future. Early considerations for the virtual health and fitness coach include the ability to generate eating, sleeping and exercise recommendations from data collected from Apple devices, according to people with knowledge of its development.

And this:

There are concepts, too, for tapping into device cameras to track and correct users’ form while they’re exercising, similar to a feature offered on Peloton Interactive Inc.’s TV-connected workout device. If all goes according to plan, AirPods by next year will be able to function as an over-the-counter hearing aid and be able to perform the hearing tests typically administered in audiologists’ offices.

There’s no doubt Apple has made significant inroads in the health vertical following the launch of the original Apple Watch in 2014.

The wearable device is now packed with health sensors for fertility planning, measuring heart rate pulses, performing electrocardiograms, determining blood oxygen levels, and more. The Health app has become a one-stop shop for users’ health and fitness stats and now supports importing hospital records.