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IT鈥橲 time. On Monday, Apple unveiled its smart watch. The Californian company鈥檚 device will finally be on sale from 24 April, costing between $349 and $17,000 in the US and between 拢299 and 拢13,500 in the UK. But Apple also launched a project that could be even bigger: one with the potential to completely change the way we learn about health.
That project is ResearchKit. This software runs on iPhones, can tap into Apple Watch data and allows users to participate directly in medical research studies. A suite of five associated apps, live now, links users to studies on Parkinson鈥檚 disease, diabetes, asthma, breast cancer and heart disease.
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Apple has said that it will never see the data itself: the company has created a channel for funnelling the information from its hundreds of millions of customers directly into the hands of health researchers.
鈥淗aving one of these things on their wrist, you can pick up how someone鈥檚 sleep is,鈥� says Patricia Ganz of the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles. She worked with Apple to build one of the ResearchKit apps, called Share the Journey, through which women who have undergone treatment for breast cancer can share their experiences of coping with symptoms. 鈥淭hese sensors have the potential to pick up functional aspects of people鈥檚 everyday life,鈥� says Ganz.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淎pple Watch is just half the story鈥�