An excerpt from a MSN money article about the Apple Watch.
More than likely the reason Apple was looking to go a different route thinking EPGL want to go more into the medical applications. Can't blame Apple for staying out of the medical bureaucracy.
2. It's a fitness device, not a health care device
The Apple Watch will initially have enough health features without triggering regulatory requirements for medical devices by the Food and Drug Administration that govern safety and effectiveness, says Forrester’s McQuivey, but it won’t be a health-care device, per se. Like many health and fitness smartwatches already on the market, the Apple Watch will keep track of your steps, heart rate and calculate how many calories you’ve burned, which will help consumers be more aware about how active or not they are.
But the Apple Watch is more geared toward fitness than health care. “Rumors have it that Apple has been meeting with regulators for some time now,” McQuivey says. “Apple will want to get as close to those limits as possible without crossing them,” he adds. “For example, intermittent heart rate monitoring is common.” Cook said the Apple Watch will be able to check your heart rate, but didn’t specify whether this is continuous and real-time. Microsoft Corp.’s Microsoft Band, which costs $200, has continuous heart rate monitoring.
Features that do something with the heart rate monitoring data that could actually help you, such as detecting an arrhythmia or sensing stress or doing other things that would indicate an adverse health circumstance, are non-existent, McQuivey says. The good news: Even though Apple is shying away from using Apple Watch to proactively prevent illness or injury, that doesn’t mean the company won’t make such a device in the future. McQuivey says it’s because “Apple doesn’t want to be the FDA’s test case.”
