Apple launched watchOS 10.2 for Apple Watch customers at the moment, with a couple of notable new options. One of many greatest adjustments is help for accessing and logging Well being app information utilizing Siri. In a brand new interview, Apple executives provide extra particulars on this function – and deal with why it’s restricted to the Apple Watch Collection 9 and Apple Watch Extremely 2.
Apple first teased that the Apple Watch would add help for accessing and logging Well being app information by way of Siri at its September particular occasion. On the time, the corporate stated the function would debut by the top of the yr – and it’s now made good on that promise.
In an interview with CNET, Deidre Caldbeck, Apple’s senior director of product advertising and marketing for Apple Watch and Well being, stated this new function is a part of Apple’s effort to make well being information as accessible as attainable.
“A giant a part of our focus is making well being information accessible,” Caldbeck defined. “And so we predict this function actually brings us increasingly more nearer to that aim.”
Caldbeck additionally emphasised that the explanation Apple waited so lengthy so as to add Well being queries to Siri is as a result of it wished to take action in a approach that protected person privateness. The Apple Watch Collection 9 and Apple Watch Extremely 2 are the primary Apple Watch fashions which might be highly effective sufficient to course of requests domestically on-device with low latency.
Katie Skinner, a senior supervisor for person privateness engineering at Apple, additionally emphasised the privacy-first method to Well being logging by way of Siri. The function was designed with the identical 4 ideas as all the corporate’s well being merchandise: “information minimization; on-device processing; transparency; and management and safety.”
“What’s actually modified is how we apply them, the applied sciences that we’re in a position to apply mitigations with, and the risk panorama,” Skinner stated.
At launch, well being logging by way of Siri can entry over 20 Well being app information sorts, however Caldbeck says there’s extra to come back: “We’re all the time on the lookout for methods to enhance and improve our options. So we will definitely proceed to discover including extra information sorts and providing extra accessibility to our well being options by means of Siri.”
Past the truth that accessing and logging Well being app information with Siri is just obtainable on the Apple Watch Collection 9 and Apple Watch Extremely, there’s one other limitation right here. Because it stands proper now, Siri requests associated to Well being app information at the moment are obtainable in English (United States) and Mandarin Chinese language (China mainland). Apple says that “extra languages” will observe, however there’s no particular timeline as of at the moment.
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