Why Apple’s Health App Redesign Is a Big Deal
Today, Apple announced new watches— the Series 12 and Ultra 4—which you can read more about here . Along with the new watch features, Apple also unveiled an updated Health app. Soon, we’ll have a full-fledged health dashboard that will rival companion apps for other wearables, such as Whoop, Garmin, and Fitbit.
Why Apple Needed a Better Health Dashboard
Apple was one of the first companies to set the trend for health-focused watches, but quickly fell behind as other devices began adding sleep and recovery metrics and personalized recommendations based on your daily data. If you open a good wearable app, you’ll instantly know what’s going on with your body data and what you should probably do about it. I’m often skeptical of specific data— it’s not a good idea to delve too deeply into any app’s metrics —but it’s good to have something to look at.
The Apple Health app has been around for years, but it’s mostly a dry list of data from various sources. This is a shame, because it has access to an incredible amount of data, not to mention powerful hidden features that most of us never discover.
Last year, Apple finally updated its Fitness app to match the activity-tracking capabilities of other wearables. This year, we finally got the other half: a Health app that can tell you how well you slept, how “recovered” you are, and how your long-term health appears to be shaping up.
What’s new in the updated Health app?
While Apple showcased these features in the context of the Apple Watch update (more on that below), I’m probably most interested in the software updates that will be rolling out to iPhones in general. In any case, that’s my guess—I’ll be keeping an eye on Apple’s announcements for more details as they become available.
Apple has introduced a new Readiness score that can tell you whether you need to “recover,” “take it easy,” “ready,” or “go for it.” (The order is from worst to best.) This score can be updated throughout the day, making it a more visual analog to metrics like Garmin’s Body Battery.
When you open the Health app, the relevant insights are displayed at the top of the screen, including sleep, recovery, and rings. The main screen displays your sleep data from the previous night, along with a sleep quality score. The app includes text summaries and recommendations generated by Apple Intelligence, which means you’ll need an iPhone 16 or later to use them.
In the screenshots Apple shared, I noticed a tiny number that actually represents a huge shift in the company’s strategy: one of the metrics displays your rings next to your daily step count. Apple has never placed much emphasis on step count, to the point that people often download third-party step counters to easily view their steps on the watch. But the Health app has always kept track, and now it displays the number in an easy-to-view location.
Depending on how well Apple implements this idea, I can see apps like Bevel becoming obsolete. And Bevel is already making some wearable apps (like Google Health) obsolete—you can simply read data from Bevel or now Apple Health, instead of using the app that comes with your Fitbit. Other fitness tech companies will now have a serious competitor available for free on their phones.
Another important change concerns the assessment of lifespan and maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max).
I roll my eyes every time some health or fitness app claims to measure my “longevity” or some other real “age” of my body. Depending on which app you ask, I’m either 10 years younger than I actually am or three years older.
Apple has also joined the club, adding an entire “Longevity” tab to the Health app. (There are now three tabs: the Home screen, the Share tab, and now the “Longevity” tab in the middle.) Despite the eye-rolling, I understand what Apple is doing here. Don’t view longevity in this (or any other) app as a definitive indicator of how long you’ll live; think of it as a measure of how your long-term health habits stack up. Apple’s longevity calculations include seven areas, with icons representing things like diet, exercise, heart health, hearing health, movement (possibly steps), sleep, and mental well-being.
There’s also a new set of tests, including a VO2max test. According to Apple’s presentation, you position the phone so it can see your entire body, then step to the beat of a metronome, accelerating as the beeps speed up until you’re standing still. It sounds like it’s inspired by the Harvard Step Test , which requires you to rise and fall in place and then have your heart rate measured. Until now, Apple’s VO2max estimates have always been based on GPS tracking data, such as outdoor running. (Apple ranked average in the accuracy of VO2max estimates out of the nine devices I tested . I’m curious to see if the new assessment performs better.)
The Apple Watch boasts “the most accurate heart rate measurement ever in a wearable.”
In terms of the overall user experience—the Apple Watch itself—the Apple Watch Series 12 is noticeably improved over previous versions. Apple redesigned the heart rate sensor on the back of the watch, installing larger LEDs and upgrading the photodiodes for detecting reflected light.
Apple claims that these updates give it “the most accurate heart rate measurement in a wearable.” To which I say: I’ll believe it when I see it. In my testing over the past few years, the Apple Watch has lagged significantly behind other wearable heart rate sensors in accuracy. There’s certainly room for improvement, but can Apple’s new sensor outperform Garmin’s fifth-generation sensor, the one that made me double-check the data because I thought I’d confused it with my chest strap?
Apple has published a document with the results of an internal heart rate accuracy study comparing the Series 12 (but not the Ultra 4) to the Garmin Forerunner 970, Google Pixel Watch 4, Huawei Watch 5, Samsung Galaxy Watch 8, Whoop 5.0, and Oura Ring 5, as well as a Polar H10 chest strap for comparison. The document is short and doesn’t include the details I’d like to see in more thorough testing, so rest assured I’ll be digging into it myself once I get my hands on the new watch. If Apple truly matches the Forerunner 970’s accuracy, I’ll be incredibly impressed.