by Apple’s (AAPL) AI platform Apple Intelligence was the star of the company’s “Glowtime” iPhone event on Monday, but two health features the company unveiled point to Apple’s continued push into the healthcare space and could prove just as important to retaining users as its AI efforts.
The features, including sleep apnea detection for Apple Watch and a hearing aid feature for AirPods Pro 2, aren’t ready for consumers yet – they still need to be approved by global health authorities, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – but Apple expects them to be available in the coming weeks.
The tech giant’s intensified efforts in health monitoring are just the latest step in its journey to become a major player in the industry. Back in 2019, CEO Tim Cook said Apple’s greatest contribution to humanity would be in the area of health.
So it makes sense that the company would add features that address known health issues to some of its most popular products, the AirPods Pro 2 and Apple Watch Series 9, 10, and Ultra 2. According to Apple, an estimated 1 billion people worldwide suffer from sleep apnea, a disorder that causes troubled breathing during sleep and can increase the risk of diabetes and heart disease, but the majority of those individuals don’t know they have it. In its own study, Apple said that 75% of people diagnosed with hearing loss don’t get the necessary support they need to manage it.
Apple notes that sleep apnea detection is not intended to diagnose the condition, but rather to serve as a guide to alert you to potential sleep problems that you can bring to your doctor to discuss further testing. Apple Watch tracks your sleep by detecting micro-movements via its built-in accelerometer.
Apple says it has submitted what it calls the largest study of sleep apnea technology to the FDA to validate the watch’s detection capabilities. During testing on 1,500 people, the company said its sleep apnea detection did not raise an alarm for a single person who did not show at least signs of mild sleep apnea, and that it raised an alarm for about two-thirds of true sleep apnea cases.
To detect sleep apnea, users must wear their watches for at least 10 nights over a 30-day period, and the longer you wear them during that time, the better. Apple will display the results in a new Breathing Disorders tab in the Health app, showing whether you’re struggling with breathing disorders during the night.
If you have enough trouble sleeping, the Health app will alert you that you are showing signs of sleep apnea. Your breathing can change from night to night for a variety of reasons, whether it’s due to a cold or alcohol consumption. The requirement that users wear their watches for 10 nights should help account for these exceptional situations.
I have sleep apnea and sleep with a CPAP mask every night, but I had terrible sleep problems for years without knowing what was wrong. It took my former editor and my wife to convince me to take a sleep test and find out I had a problem. The Apple Watch notifications would have saved me a lot of time thinking about whether or not to go to the doctor.
Similarly impressive is Apple’s hearing protection and hearing aid feature for the AirPods Pro 2. The option will be available via a software update and includes the ability to take a five-minute test to determine if you are suffering from any form of hearing loss.
I did a quick practice test: it took less than a minute and required me to tap the screen each time I heard a beep in my left ear and then in my right ear. It was a bit like the hearing tests you do in school.
I haven’t been able to test the hearing aid feature myself, but Apple is positioning it as a replacement for over-the-counter hearing aids for people with mild to moderate hearing loss. Users with severe hearing problems will still need specially made hearing aids.
However, offering consumers a hearing test and the opportunity to purchase an equivalent over-the-counter hearing aid could be incredibly helpful to people around the world who might not otherwise know they have hearing problems.
In addition, Apple’s features are another way for the company to attract new users and keep existing customers from switching to competing products from Samsung and Google, even though Samsung already offers sleep apnea detection in its own smartwatch.
The idea is that Apple wants to prove that its products are invaluable devices that shouldn’t be without. And with its latest offerings, the company seems to be doing just that. We’ll see how consumers respond when Apple releases updates to sleep apnea detection and hearing protection and aids in the coming weeks.
Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@yahoofinance.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.
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