At its World Developer's Conference in San Francisco Monday, Apple unveiled a handful of new additions to its watch. The tools, geared toward more precise fitness and health tracking, could signal a move from the company to leverage its wearable device to compete with other popular mHealth devices, like the FitBit or Jawbone's UP.
One of these build outs, according to Popular Science, is the Activity app, which will keep users informed of exactly how many steps they take. Activity will also include the option to compare one's own stats with friends, comparing heart rate, steps taken, miles run, or calories burned, among other metrics. Apple has also designed an app specifically aimed at athletes in wheelchairs, which tracks the type of terrain the wearer is rolling through.
Breathe, another watch innovation announced at the conference, aims to cultivate mindfulness in users by guiding them through deep breathing and other various meditation practices. An application like Breathe could be a way for Apple to leverage the interactive capability's of the watch screen, which wearable competitors such as FitBit or Garmin have but to a much more limited extent.