The Apple Watch is already the company's health tracker, and the AirPods will follow suit. Still, the iPhone maker wants to do more when it comes to health.
As of right now, Apple devices keep track of various health metrics such as heart rate, blood oxygen levels, and calories burned, but that data is just collected. The company does appear to have a plan to make use of that health data with the help of AI.
Apple wants its Health app, which tracks those health metrics, to offer AI coaching to improve your health, according to a report from Bloomberg.
This new strategy, reportedly referred to as Project Mulberry or Health+ among employees, is underway at the company, with doctors brought in to train AI agents. These doctors and other experts are also making videos to explain certain health issues and what can be done to improve them, the report says. The goal of this project is to have an AI coach that can look at all the health data collected from the various Apple and third-party devices to give recommendations on how to improve a user's health.
Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on this new health project.
AirPods and health
The Apple Watch was the company's primary way of gathering health metrics. That could be changing in the future with the AirPods being its next health-tracking device.
Apple reportedly wants its earbuds to have heart-rate monitoring, temperature sensing, and other sensors in order to gather more data on the user. The company also filed paperwork for a patent to have the AirPods keep track of other fitness metrics, such as how steadily a person walks and their breathing patterns, in order to determine if a person has a possible health ailment.
These plans for the AirPods are still a long way from happening, if they ever do.
Apple still needs to figure out AI.
AI, however, is the feature Apple is currently wrestling with. The company revealed its big endeavor into AI with Apple Intelligence when it unveiled the iPhone 16 last September. The rollout for Apple Intelligence, however, has yet to meet the standard the company is known for.
Even though Apple Intelligence "launched" not long after the release of the latest iPhone, the features Apple showed off have been slowly trickling out. Currently, Apple Intelligence can do certain functions like summarizing notifications, offering smart replies for texts, and cleaning up photos that a user may not want anymore, but it's still lagging behind.
Most notably, the big integration of AI into Siri to give the assistant an overhaul to become a true AI assistant has yet to materialize. Apple scrapped its plans for this smarter Siri and has plans to release the updated assistant sometime next year. This change also led to a shake-up within Apple, as the head of the team that developed the Vision Pro VR headset has reportedly been put in charge of the Siri team.
Apple will hold its Worldwide Developer Conference starting June 9. This is the annual event where the company shows off the new features coming to iOS 19 and its other devices.
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