Apple patents smartwatch app to help you workout and run
COUNTING to ten is old school. Apple has patented technology to have a smartwatch track your gym workouts for you.
APPLE could become your best gym buddy having been granted a patent that will count how many weights you lift.
The Cupertino-based tech giant at last week’s Worldwide Developers Conference announced its plan for the iPhone to be the centre of people’s health and fitness program when it unveiled the Healthkit system that is designed to bring all fitness and activity tracking information together in one place.
Now comes the news that Apple has been granted a patent that will count how many times you lift a weightbar and send that information to a smartwatch. The watch will do the heavy lifting of counting to ten — all you will have to do is the physical task of lifting the weight.
Apple Insider first reported the granting of US Patent No 8,749,380 for a “Shoe wear-out sensor, body-bar sensing system, unitless activity assessment and associated methods”. The patent dates back to an initial patent first lodged in 2006 — the year before Steve Jobs launched the iPhone.
The initial patent application also included a description of sensors that could be used to inform people when the soles of their shoe was so worn it was time to upgrade their footwear.
The technology behind the weightlifting patent seems simple, given the widespread use of accelerometers in fitness devices and smartphones.
The patent describes how a device would be attached to a weightlifting bar and count the repetitions. It would then display that information on a screen attached to the bar or transmit it to a smartwatch.
The patent leads to the obvious question: where is this Apple smartwatch the patent refers to? The current rumours are that Apple will release a iWatch in October or September. Time will tell.
Whether the patent results in an Apple product, time will tell. What it does show is the big picture — Apple has been thinking about health and fitness for a long time.
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