Apple has announced it is building a team of senior medical technology executives, likely to help make its iWatch and other wearable devices a reality sometime in the near future.
Over the last year or so, Apple has reportedly hired at least half a dozen of prominent experts in biomedicine, according to LinkedIn profile changes.
One researcher moved just two weeks ago, and Apple is supposedly still recruiting more hardware experts and medical professionals, though the number of hires has not been released yet, according to Reuters.
Much of the hiring is in sensor technology, a field that company CEO Tim Cook predicted last year as primed "to explode," according to Reuters. Industry experts claim the move telegraphs a vision of monitoring everything from nutrition to blood-sugar levels, beyond the fitness-based devices currently available for purchase.
"This is a very specific play in the bio-sensing space," said Malay Gandhi, chief strategy officer at Rock Health, according to Reuters.
Rock Health is a San Francisco venture capital firm that has supported a number of well-known wearable-tech companies, like Augmedix and Spire.
Gandhi said he was aware of several of the moves.
Apple is under a lot of pressure to deliver on Cook's promise of new product categories this year. The company has not released a new type of product since 2010 when it introduced the iPad.
Apple has already registered the trademark "iWatch" in Japan. A number of other patents indicate the company is preparing to release wrist-worn devices, and in February the company filed a patent for a smart earbud patent that could detect gestures of the head and track steps.
"There's no doubt that Apple is sniffing around this area," said Ted Driscoll, a Silicon Valley-based partner at Claremont Creek Ventures, which specializes in digital health and medical devices, according to Reuters.
Driscoll said Apple is focused on obtaining engineers with experience in "monitoring the body's perimeters."
Apple has hired biomedical engineers from companies like Vital Connect, Masimo Corp, Sano Intelligence and O2 MedTech.
Singularity University's Daniel Kraft, who chairs the FutureMed program designed to explore developing technologies, expects Apple to release a device that could continuously monitor glucose levels without requiring a blood draw.
"Some of the talent (Apple recruited) has access to deep wells of trade secrets and information," said Joe Kiani, chief executive officer of medical device firm Masimo Corp, according to Reuters.
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