Your iPhone, Apple Watch and iPad can now track your mental health
Apple on Monday announced a number of new improvements and features to augment its Health offerings. The list of new additions made to the suite of Apple’s health and wellbeing features include mental wellbeing, vision improvement, and finally — the Health app on iPad. The new features come amid a slew of new announcements made by Apple at the WWDC 2023 keynote, which includes its first entirely new hardware announcement in a decade with the Vision Pro mixed reality headset, its flagship processor M2 Ultra, a new 15-inch MacBook Air, and more.
How Apple devices will track mental health
Mental health features on Apple devices will be integrated into the Health app on iOS 17, and going forward, iPadOS 17 as well. On watchOS 10 smartwatches, Apple has introduced it in its Mindfulness app. The interface will allow users to log how they feel — ranging from ‘very pleasant’ to ‘very unpleasant’ — and link their feelings to their surroundings and related emotions. In a press statement, Apple said that after choosing how users feel through a slider interface, they can then choose what company are they in (i.e. friends and family, at work, or any other situation), and also select their predominant emotion (such as grateful or worried).
Apple has also launched a new Journal app on iPhones, which will become available when users upgrade their devices to iOS 17. Users will be able to use the app to log their thoughts, and also use their logged emotions to track trigger patterns — which may in turn help them to seek help.
Vision tracking
New vision tracking features on iOS and iPadOS will work in two ways — one, by increasing time spent without screens and in natural light, and two, by increasing the distance between a screen and a user’s eyes. The first feature will use light sensors on Apple’s devices to track sunlight exposure, and offer prompts to users in terms of spending more time outside and in naturally lit environments.
According to Apple, children can make use of the feature to avoid developing visual impairment by using their own Apple Watches, which can track their outdoor exposure even without them using their own iPhones. In these cases, Apple Watches belonging to children can be paired with their parents’ phones, in order for the latter to track their children’s activities.
Apple will also use its front cameras on iPhones and iPads to give users prompts to increase the distance between a screen and their eyes, in order to reduce eye strain. This feature, according to Apple, will help users reduce the chances of developing Myopia.
Health app on iPad
Finally, Apple has introduced its Health app on iPads as well, which Apple says will help users get their health insights even on their tablets — without needing to access their iPhones separately. Apple has also introduced a new feature called Medications within the Health app, to track irregularities in consumption of regular medication. Apple’s Fitness Plus subscription service also gets new custom workout plans devised by trainers based on users’ health data, while a new feature called ‘Audio Focus’ delivered through its AirPods will help users increase the music volume to louder than usual, in order to augment environmental noise while working out.
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