Apple’s launch of iOS 8 earlier this month is still fresh on our mind, and along with all the other new features it introduced, we got to know HealthKit. With HealthKit, Apple aims to give wearable activity trackers and other body sensors a central hub for storing their sensor data, maximizing its usefulness for fitness tracking or more serious healthcare-related analysis. And when Apple’s own smartwatch eventually makes its debut, it should fit right in with the existing HealthKit functionality. But when it comes to wearables, Android’s already way ahead of iOS, so where’s its own HealthKit-like data hub? According to a new rumor, news of such a service may be arriving at Google I/O later this month, with the introduction of Google Fit.
From the sound of things, Fit would have more than a little in common with HealthKit, offering wearable-related APIs, gathering data, and making that data available to other apps – really, the only thing we haven’t heard mentioned is a specific focus on providing such data to professional healthcare personnel, though that could easily emerge as part of Google’s announcement. Then again, the old Google Health never really took off, so that may not be a certainty.
Additionally, it’s not clear how Google Fit might relate to Android Wear, but the specific details aren’t so important right now – all that will be revealed in time (assuming these reports are leading us in the right direction), and the relevant takeaway is how we seem to be seeing this cross-platform effort to really formalize the way wearables interact with out phones.
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