Apple CEO Tim Cook recently revealed that they are looking into releasing a product that is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and can be used in the medical field.
A recent meeting with officials from the FDA spurred speculations that the US-based tech titan is gearing toward making wearable tech for medical purposes, Design & Trend reports.
Currently, there is no wearable tech in the market that monitors vital health indicators like blood pressure. Such device would require FDA's approval for production and market release.
However, Cook immediately squashed rumors that they are making an Apple Watch with integrated medical applications, saying that while the meeting with the FDA is related to the company's future efforts to build a medical device that will require the agency's approval, they are certainly not building an Apple Watch with medicine as part of the agenda.
"I wouldn't mind putting something adjacent to the watch through it, but not the watch, because it would hold us back from innovating too much; the cycles are too long," Cook said in an interview with The Telegraph. "We don't want to put the watch through the Food and Drug Administration process," he added.
The CEO did mention during the interview the health benefits the Apple Watch offers its wearers such as monitoring heart rate and activity through an advanced optical heart rate sensor. Cook also recalled how the Apple Watch was instrumental in saving the life of a high school football player.
"He learnt from his watch that his heart rate was elevated; he mentioned it to his trainer who became very worried about it. He sent him to the doctor, and the doctor told him he would have died the following day had he not come in. Basically, his organs were shutting down," Cook said.
Though the Apple Watch won't become a medical device anytime soon, Cook clearly indicated that the company is indeed taking a step towards medicine.