Apple is reportedly looking to make a serious splash in the medical field. According to a report from the San Francisco Chronicle, the Cupertino-based company is working on sensor technology that could help predict heart attacks.
The research is being led by Tomlinson Holman, the audio engineer responsible for creating THX. You may be asking yourself what an audio engineer would know about the medical field - and it'd be a valid question.
Apparently, Apple and Holman are focused on the sound that blood makes as it travels through a person's arteries. A sensor that is capable of monitoring and analyzing such sounds would logically need to be worn on the body at all times. In other words, it could be a perfect fit for the long-rumored Apple iWatch.
We've been hearing for a while now that Apple is planning to focus on fitness and health with iOS 8 and the iWatch. Apple hired medical device expert Marcelo Malini Lamego, the former CTO of medical device company Cercacor, last month while the company added Michael O'Reilly last summer. O'Reilly formerly served as the chief medical officer and executive VP of medical affairs at Masimo before joining Apple.
All of this suggests Apple is planning for the iWatch to be a much more impactful device than most initially expected. It'd also be a completely different path compared to the direction that Pebble, Samsung, Sony and others have taken with their connected watches.