Google May Launch A Health-Data App Called "Google Fit" This June
Google is planning to launch a new health service called Google Fit to collect and aggregate data from popular fitness trackers and health-related apps, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the company’s plans.
Just two weeks after Apple announced its upcoming Health app for iOS 8, Google is reportedly preparing to launch a similar service called Google Fit
Apple's new HealthKit health and fitness tracking platform looks set to gain a fresh challenger in the form of Android developer Google, which will reportedly launch a similar service dubbed Google Fit at its annual developer conference in San Francisco later this month.
appleinsider.comGoogle Fit is rumoured to collect and aggregate data from fitness trackers, as well as other health-related apps
Google Fit will aggregate data through open APIs, instruction sets that allow apps to share information, and will also announce partnerships with wearable device makers at its I/O conference, Forbes understands.
forbes.comOne source with knowledge of Google’s plans said Google Fit would allow a wearable device that measures data like steps or heart rate to interface with Google’s cloud-based services, and become part of the Google Fit ecosystem.
The move would directly compete with Apple's new Health app and HealthKit for developers
The concept behind Google Fit is similar to Apple's Passbook app, the iPhone's virtual pocket for items such as airline boarding passes, movie tickets and coupons. It will be able to pull in data from other third-party apps, such as Nike, to keep all your health-related information in one hub.
It’s unclear if Google Fit will be a service build into the next version of Android, or a standalone app that Android users will be able to download independently
Google has kept much of what it will announce at I/O under wraps but it has scheduled several developer sessions where it could conceivably talk about Google Fit. There is a session on “wearable computing with Google” on Day 1, followed by “designing for wearables,” and then the broader “Android and cloud” session on Day 2.
forbes.comGoogle has been in this field before with Google Health, which also acted as a health portal but was shut down in 2012
“Google Health never took off because consumers actually don’t want to aggregate their data,” says Derek Newell, CEO of digital health care platform Jiff. “They haven’t wanted to. What they want is information. They want meaning, rewards and a feedback loop.”
forbes.comGoogle may want its new health platform to tie in with Android Wear, a version of Google’s Android mobile OS that's built for smartwatches and other wearable devices
This way, someone wearing two or three wearable devices that run on Android Wear could have disparately collected data like steps, heart rate and temperature, aggregated by Google Fit as a central collection point.
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