Apple has just acquired a young health startup, presumably with the intention of improving its own myriad healthcare platforms.
Over the last few years, Apple has quietly built up an impressive suite of health technologies: HealthKit, ResearchKit and CareKit work together with hardware in the iPhone and Apple Watch to help users track their personal health, aid medical research and care for medical conditions.
So the news that Apple has bought a three-year-old tech startup called Gliimpse – a company that specializes in the collection of personal health records – should come as no surprise. It can however be seen as a sign of intent that Apple is looking to improve the way medical data is kept and shared. Gliimpse founder Anil Sethi points out that “there’s no single electronic health record that all physicians use,” something that Apple is in a unique position to try to help with.
Read more: how Apple can change healthcare for the better
The tech giant’s acquisitions often give an insight into what its working on, though as expected Apple would only say that it “buys smaller companies from time to time” and that the company “does not discuss [its] purpose or plans.” Even so, add this to the fact that Apple has re-hired the co-founder of Flipboard to work on “health-related software” and is rumored to be developing a brand new health-tracking device for 2017, and you’ve get a pretty clear picture of Apple’s intentions.