Follow
The big unveil should take place later in June during I/O Developer conference. The service is described as being similar to the recent Apple HealthKit.
Of course, as you probably figured by now, the forthcoming Google Fit service is a direct competitor to the HealthKit, proving once again that tech companies are in a permanent race against each other. According to sources quoted by Forbes under the protection of anonymity,
Google Fit will aggregate data through open APIs, instruction sets that allow apps to share information, and will also announce partnerships with wearable device makers at its I/O conference, Forbes understands. One source with knowledge of Google’s plans said Google Fit would allow a wearable device that measures data like steps or heart rate to interface with Google’s cloud-based services, and become part of the Google Fit ecosystem. Google could not be reached for comment at the time of writing.
However, it is still unclear if the Google Fit service is going to take the shape of an independent app or will be integrated into the Android OS. While Google is obsessed with gathering and aggregating data, let’s not forget it tried before to deliver some sort of health service called Google Health. The project unfortunately succumbed due to the fact that users weren’t so pleased with its features. It collected more data than it provided the users with helpful information, therefore it was stopped.
According to tech journalists and experts, it would make a lot of sense from Google’s part to deliver the Google Fit service in the shape of an app. Considering that Android users are scattered all over the world, benefiting from different carriers, different handsets manufactured by different companies and so on, the best chance Google has is to unveil an app rather than an Android upgrade.
The competition in the field of health tracking devices and apps is quite powerful. Apple, Samsung and Google all have their own smartwatches and wearable devices to hone the power of aggregation to, while Microsoft is still in the game, with its own smartwatch. All tech behemoths are fighting for a piece of the pie in the health – tech industry. Google’s upcoming developers conference will make all things clear, so all we have to do is just wait until then.
