An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Granted, 19th-century proverb writers were talking about the fruit, but Tim Cook helped give new meaning to the adage with the release of the very first Apple Watch. In fact, I’d argue that when he hands the reins to John Ternus in September, it won’t be iPhones, Macs, AirPods, or the Vision Pro that defines Cook’s legacy. It’ll be how the Apple Watch set the course for modern health tech.
You don’t have to take my word for it. In 2019, Cook himself told told Mad Money host Jim Cramer, “…If you zoom out into the future, and you look back, and you ask the question, ‘What was Apple’s greatest contribution to mankind?’, it will be about health.”
The Apple Watch was the first new Apple product in the post-Steve Jobs era and the first developed without his input — though Cook was adamant that his predecessor’s influence could be seen and felt within the device. Consequently, it served as a barometer for Cook’s leadership and whether Apple could continue to innovate without Jobs’ singular vision.
It was a shaky start. Apple’s early gambit on the Watch as a high-end fashion piece didn’t stick. But looking back, the gadget has defined the modern wearable industry. FDA-cleared digital health screening features weren’t a thing before the Series 4. Now, wearable devices across the industry can detect atrial fibrillation, hypertension, and sleep apnea. They can call emergency services if you get into a car crash or take a nasty fall. Each year, before a new Watch is announced, Apple rolls a clip of “Dear Tim” letters where users express how the gadget saved their lives. (It’s a moment Cook also called out yesterday in his letter to Apple fans.) We’ve written at The Verge about how these ads can feel like subtle fearmongering, but it’s an undeniable fact that there are real-life people who owe their lives to the device.
Cook was among the first tech CEOs to characterize wearables as democratizing healthcare and science. Launching the inaugural Apple Heart Study and the Apple Research app has opened several doors for clinical researchers. The Apple Heart Study, for example, had 400,000 participants, an unprecedented number in 2017. A few short years later, during the covid-19 pandemic, researchers used an array of wearable devices to study whether the devices could detect early signs of infectious illnesses. One study found that the Apple Watch, could in fact, detect covid-19 up to a week early. But the research precedent wasn’t limited to Apple’s devices. Major sporting organizations ended up using the Oura Ring as part of their covid-19 reintegration plans once vaccines became more widely available. Since then, Oura has also launched a feature called Symptom Radar to detect early health changes.
This idea is one we’ve seen adopted by politicians as well. Current Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also been an outspoken proponent of “taking control of your health” with wearable tech. RFK Jr. has gone as far as saying he believes wearable tech to be a pillar of the Make America Healthy Again movement. Regardless of how you view MAHA or RFK Jr.’s wellness beliefs, none of that would’ve been possible without the blueprint Apple set with its Apple Watch.
It might be tempting to downplay Cook’s role in Apple’s pivot to health. After all, Jony Ive often gets credited with dreaming up the Apple Watch and its iconic design. Steve Jobs’ healthcare experiences while battling pancreatic cancer have also been cited as the “true” reason behind the Apple Watch’s creation. But I’d argue you can’t fully separate Tim Cook the man from Apple’s approach to health tech.
For one, I must point to Slate’s investigation into whether Tim Cook is secretly swole. (Spoiler: Yes, he is.) Numerous profiles have also pointed to Cook’s strict daily routine, which starts at 4AM and includes a roughly hourlong workout at Apple’s corporate gyms. In a podcast with Outside magazine, Cook also described himself as an outdoor nerd and that exercise as a key to a good quality of life. To Fortune, Cook called himself a “fitness nut.” Cook has also previously said using the Apple Watch helped him lose 30 pounds and fine-tune his exercise routines. You can see aspects of this within Apple’s Fitness Plus service, breathing reminders, and the hiking navigation features on the Apple Watch Ultra.
It’s a bit harder to say how John Ternus, Cook’s successor, will approach health when he takes over in September. As a product guy, Ternus was behind the Apple Watch Ultra 3’s 3D-printed titanium and improved repairability. (He was a collegiate swimming champ, so perhaps we’ll see expanded features in that arena too.) Apple reportedly still hasn’t given up on noninvasive glucose monitoring. And in a recent interview, Apple told me that it plans to extend health features to other devices — something it’s already done with the AirPods Pro, which offer both heart-rate monitoring and hearing tests. The company is also in the middle of an open-ended, five-year-long clinical research study to help develop future health features.
Cook has set a strong foundation and lead, but the gap is closing. Oura and Whoop, in particular, continue to barrel forward in setting new wearable health tech trends. But, 30 years from now, when we’re all wearing glucose monitors and possibly getting illness alerts from our earbuds, we’ll be able to point back to Cook’s tenure and say this is when it all started.
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