At the opening keynote for WWDC2020, Apple’s virtual developer conference, the company announced a few additional health and fitness capabilities for the Apple Watch — though the event was relatively light on health content, especially compared to previous years.

Sleep tracking arrives at last

One such feature — sleep tracking — has been a notable omission for the wearable ever since it was first announced in 2014. The explanation has always been that the device’s power requirements generally require the user to charge it during the night.

According to Vera Carr, a senior engineer for health at Apple who presented the sleep-tracking features, the company wanted to focus not just on tracking sleep but on helping users to improve their sleep habits — with tracking forming only one aspect of that mandate.

"n the evening ahead of your bedtime, your phone can display the Wind Down screen to help you transition mentally before you go to bed. It creates a calm lock screen experience and turns on Do Not Disturb for you," Carr said. "You can also set up shortcuts for simple things you may like to do to help you prepare for bed each night, including using your favorite meditation app or playing relaxing music. Once it's time for bed, your screen will dim and your Watch will go into sleep mode. The screen will be off during your time in bed, so won't bother you."

A tap on the Watch displays a dimmed face showing only the time.

"When it's time to wake up, you'll have a selection of gentle and effective alarm sounds or a silent, haptic-only wake up alarm so you don't disturb your partner. Once you're up, you'll see a friendly greeting easing you into the day. It also shows your battery level so you can remember to charge in the morning." Carr continued. "Apple Watch tracks your sleep using a machine learning model that senses your motion and even interprets the micro movements caused by the rise and fall of your breath, providing signals for when you're awake and when you're asleep. There's an updated sleep section in the Health app, including a view of your trends over time."

Notably, no mention was made of Beddit, the sleep-tracking company Apple acquired a few years ago. Apple still offers the device, but the version 3.5 that was released early last year has been criticized for removing multiple useful features from the previous version.

Handwashing helper

Another feature that’s particularly notable as the world continues to battle against the COVID-19 pandemic is handwashing detection and assistance.

“Our approach here is using machine learning models to determine motion which appears to be hand washing and then to use audio to confirm the sound of running water or squishing soap on your hands,” Kevin Lynch, Apple’s VP of technology said during the presentation. “During this, you'll get a little coaching to do a good job. You'll see a countdown along with haptics and sounds to make sure you wash as long as you're supposed to. If you pause early, there's a polite note to keep washing, and when you're done you'll see, hear and feel it.”

Lynch didn’t expound on the context of this feature, but it could be especially useful in the healthcare field where handwashing is important and compliance is often worryingly low.

Notably, competitor Samsung launched a free handwashing app for its watches earlier this month, though it lacks the automatic detection feature.

Tracking dance and more

As has become tradition at WWDC, the Apple Watch section of the presentation also featured new kinds of workout training. This year the focus was on a new feature that tracks fitness dancing, including hip-hop, Latin and Bollywood.

“Getting the most accurate credit for dance presented a unique challenge,” Jules Arney, Apple’s senior manager for fitness technologies, said. “Arm movements aren't always repetitive or synchronized with leg movements like you're running or walking. The solution was to use advanced sensor fusion. In dance, we combine data from the accelerometer and the gyroscope to detect the difference between dancing with just your arms, just your lower body, or when you put it all together and dance with your entire body. Then we added heart rate data for the most accurate calorie burn.”

The new WatchOS also adds tracking for core training, functional strength training, and workout cool downs. The Activity app in iOS has been updated with a new design and renamed; it’s now the Fitness app.

Other announcements to keep an eye on

Other than the handwashing feature, a brief mention of COVID-19 in the CEO Tim Cook’s introduction and an option to add masks to Apple’s memojis, the current pandemic crisis wasn’t discussed much at the event. Apple did not offer an update on its contact-tracing project with Google.

A few upgrades not directly related to health could have implications for the field.

Siri is moving the processing of its dictation to the device rather than the cloud, which could make it a more attractive tool for healthcare providers concerned about security.  And speaking of security, Apple is moving to add simpler, more understandable privacy policies to its apps, forcing developers to be more transparent in how they’re using users’ data.

The Apple Watch is also broadening its available Watch faces and allowing users to do more with complications, which allows apps like Glow Baby and Nike Run Club to create customized Watch faces with tools specifically useful to their users.

Mental health and wellness app use has been on the rise during the past few months of COVID-19, but new quarantines and disease concerns may not be fueling the spike in new users or other metrics.

According to a recent data report from Apptopia, increases among the 15 most popular of these apps have been in lockstep with the gradual trend of rising engagement that the mobile app market-intelligence group has been monitoring for the last three years.

"Reflective of the market as a whole, most of the apps we analyzed were largely unaffected by the pandemic, continuing to grow or decline according to their previous trend line," Apptopia's Madeline Lenahan wrote in a blog post describing the market data.

"For instance, Calm, the largest app of the group, may look like it's surging in recent months: New installs of the app were 18% higher in May than January, and app sessions were 23% higher. And on June 14, Calm achieved its highest [daily active users] in its lifetime with approximately 4.6 million. Still, this record high engagement does not deviate from the app's trend line," she wrote.

Looking at the month of May, Apptopia observed a 66% YoY increase in total mental wellness app sessions – although Lenahan wrote that this could be misleading due to an "abnormally poor" performance in May of last year. More drastic is a 4% YoY decline in net new installs – a metric for gauging new users – following year after year of steady increases.

"This means it's loyal users, not new users who are driving the strong engagement lately," she wrote.

WHY IT MATTERS

The in-line trend-finding doesn't discount substantial use of the top mental health apps during quarantine, Lenahan wrote. From March to May, Calm logged roughly 350 million sessions, while Headspace, the second most-used, came in at around 150 million sessions.

However, the steady trends here are at odds with the broader discussion of increased digital health and telehealth adoption during the pandemic, particularly in terms of mental health. For these products, rather than enjoying a major leap, these companies may have to settle for slow and steady market growth.

"While mental wellness apps are growing in popularity, their success is not directly tied to the pandemic," Lenahan wrote. "This, of course, is not a bad thing, as the high engagement we're seeing is a signal that these apps have loyal users. I expect this market to continue to grow and expand as more people embrace telehealth in all of its forms."

THE LARGER TREND

From consumer apps to telehealth to digital health programs, many in the industry have highlighted a growing demand for mental healthcare and the potential for scalable technologies to address those needs. Both Headspace and Big Health have recently seen interest from investors and announced major funding rounds, while others such as Omada and Hims began offering mental health components of their platforms for free during the COVID-19 emergency.