Apple's Internet Healthcare Strategy: Building an AI-Driven Health Ecosystem

The internet healthcare sector has never lacked pioneers, with Microsoft, Google, and the BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) conglomerates being ubiquitous. Compared to these giants, Apple’s strategic moves may not seem particularly early; yet, each of its product launches stirs significant excitement, often generating buzz even before its official entry, and potentially steering the direction of the entire industry. This is because, in the public consciousness, Apple is virtually synonymous with “disruption” and “innovation.” In its own terms, this strategy is referred to as “switch.” In this article, we will explore how Apple is building its own internet healthcare empire.

The Subtle “Layout”

When Apple was first established, it primarily developed and sold personal computers. It later expanded its business to include consumer electronics, computer software, and online services, going public in 1980. Now the world’s most valuable technology company by market capitalization, nearly every move Apple makes sends shockwaves through global markets. Regarding Apple’s foray into internet healthcare, it is widely believed to have begun with the launch of its open-source HealthKit platform.

In fact, Apple had already quietly extended its reach into the internet healthcare sector prior to this. In 2006, Apple partnered with Nike to launch the Nike+ iPod product, which connected sensors placed in shoes to the iPod to monitor physical activity.

Six years later, in late December 2012, EarPod headphones capable of detecting physiological data were launched.

During this period, the widespread adoption of its hardware (such as iPhones and iPads) also facilitated advancements in the healthcare sector. According to a 2012 survey conducted by Manhattan Research among more than 3,000 practicing physicians, 62% of healthcare institutions and individual practitioners used iPads in their medical practices. Some physicians utilized the device to search for clinical drug information, while others employed it as a diagnostic tool for remote patient monitoring. Consequently, many healthcare institutions have sought deeper collaboration with Apple, aiming to enhance medical care through initiatives such as launching customized iPads.

Subsequently, Apple introduced the M7 chip in the iPhone 5S in 2013, which briefly became a focal point of public discussion. The M7 chip continuously monitors data from various sensors, such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, and electronic compasses. By offloading sensor data processing to this dedicated chip, it enables faster, real-time data acquisition and supports a wider range of applications.

However, a concerning trend is that Apple has been slow to release new products since launching the iPad in 2010.

As the public speculated about Apple’s next product launch, frequent reports emerged in 2013 that a large number of scientists, engineers, biomedical technology experts, glucose sensor managers, and consumer fitness equipment managers were jumping ship to Apple.

It was not until a report in February 2014 that Apple’s formal foray into internet healthcare was revealed.

“Apple’s Senior Vice President of Operations, Jeff Williams, has met with FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg and Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, who oversees the agency’s medical device approvals, to discuss ‘mobile medical applications.’”

By mid-2014, Apple had recruited nearly ten absolute authorities in the biomedical field. In addition, it hired more than 100 experts in pharmaceuticals and related hardware equipment.

With everything in place, we officially embarked on the journey into internet healthcare in June 2014.

A Transformative 2014—The Launch of HealthKit

At the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2014, Apple officially released HealthKit, its mobile health application platform.

Apple describes HealthKit as follows: “It allows apps that provide health services to share data with each other and with the latest health apps.” Users can decide how much of their health-related information to share with third parties.

In simple terms, HealthKit is an open software platform for third-party developers that provides data storage and aggregation services. Users can collect physical and physiological data through compatible hardware devices and submit it to the platform for analysis.

However, three months later, persistent bugs in HealthKit forced many apps on its platform to be taken offline, thereby delaying its launch and adoption. These issues caused some software vendors to shift from their initial enthusiasm to a more cautious, wait-and-see stance.

However, given Apple’s technological sophistication and its inherent platform advantages, it is well positioned to turn the tide by delivering a polished experience for data presentation and aggregation.

By February 2015, Apple had partnered with 14 leading hospitals in the United States. Under these agreements, physicians leverage Apple’s built-in Health system to provide guidance to patients with chronic conditions, offering timely health recommendations before disease onset. Meanwhile, more than 600 developers have integrated HealthKit into their health and fitness applications.

The advantage of HealthKit lies in its creation of a health data platform that connects everyday users, healthcare institutions, and developers, fundamentally transforming how the health industry interacts with individuals. Currently, organizations such as the Mayo Clinic, Epic, Nike (with its Nike FuelBand), and Samsung (with its Gear Fit) have already adopted the platform.

A month after the launch of HealthKit, reports emerged that Apple was increasing its investment in the research and development of medical devices, particularly those equipped with sensors capable of predicting heart disease. The person in charge was even identified through online sleuthing: Tomlinson Holman, a renowned audio engineer formerly at Lucasfilm, is leading the effort. The technology will primarily assess the risk of heart disease by monitoring blood flow through the user’s aorta. If these claims are true, this initiative would make a significant contribution to Apple’s entry into the healthcare market.

Then, on September 9 of the same year, at Apple’s 2014 fall product launch event, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch was available in three versions—standard, Sport, and Edition—spanning a wide range of price points from several thousand to hundreds of thousands of yuan. In terms of functionality, the Apple Watch primarily focused on health monitoring and notifications. Its design and pricing completely reshaped external perceptions of smartwatches. Although it initially came preloaded with eight medical apps, there are now over 200 such apps available. Since then, Apple has begun to venture into the field of medical monitoring.

Open 2015

Not just Apple; globally, wearable devices such as bands, patches, and watches are booming.

Most of these wearable devices are equipped with a rich array of built-in sensors while maintaining a compact size and high portability. They can monitor and analyze multiple physiological metrics, including physical activity levels, sleep quality, heart rate, blood glucose, and blood pressure, thereby facilitating the effortless accumulation of substantial health data.

However, no matter how abundant the data may be, its value remains limited without analysis by professional healthcare providers. To unlock the potential of the vast amounts of user-accumulated data, Apple has made another strategic move by launching ResearchKit, an open-source framework.

On March 10, Apple released the new medical application ResearchKit.

ResearchKit, like HealthKit released last June, can collect and analyze users’ health data. More advanced than HealthKit, ResearchKit shifts its focus toward the medical field, connecting 700 million iPhone users on one end with hospitals on the other. In collaboration with numerous renowned medical institutions worldwide, the first five apps developed using the ResearchKit framework are: mPower for Parkinson’s disease, GlucoSuccess for diabetes, MyHeart Counts for cardiovascular health, Asthma Health for asthma, and Share the Journey for breast cancer.

This unprecedented move, regardless of whether Apple stands to benefit from it, will undoubtedly advance medical research for the benefit of all humanity as the ResearchKit ecosystem continues to expand.

In mid-April, Apple fully opened up ResearchKit.

In late April, HealthKit was extensively integrated with hospital electronic medical records (EMRs) to facilitate in-depth collaboration. As Apple deepens its penetration into the healthcare sector, more professional applications will gradually be deployed, leading to an increase in collected user data.

One of Apple’s generous moves this year was to bury the hatchet with IBM. In April, with IBM (IBM's Healthcare Industry Layout) and has reached cooperation agreements with Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, and other leading global medical device manufacturers to share health data from Watch with physicians and insurance companies, and to create personalized treatment plans for patients undergoing hip replacement surgery and those with diabetes. Apple will provide IBM with user data from various sports and health applications. With user consent, IBM will transform this anonymized data into meaningful analytics for disease treatment and rehabilitation.

And the latest news is that, according to MIT Technology Review, Apple is collaborating with multiple U.S. research institutions to launch an app that will give iPhone users access to DNA testing.

From the perspective of development direction, the above information primarily revolves around two aspects—expanding the internet healthcare strategy through mobile hardware and application platforms—and two major collaboration models—hospitals partnering with technology companies to integrate third-party health and medical applications and wearable devices. The figure below illustrates Apple’s publicly announced initiatives in internet healthcare in recent years.

According to rough statistics from VCBeat, among health and medical apps integrated with Apple’s various application platforms and hardware, iOS has incorporated over 84,000 such applications to date. HealthKit supports more than 900 apps, while Apple Watch has over 200. In contrast, the open-source ResearchKit remains in its initial release stage, with only five apps currently available. These figures indicate that the number of apps on the ResearchKit platform is significantly lower than that on HealthKit. This suggests that although ResearchKit is more open than HealthKit, it targets a more specialized domain, resulting in stringent requirements for app integration. Mirroring its strategy in internet healthcare, Apple adopts a “less but better” approach, focusing exclusively on high-impact solutions.