Tech advancements have completely transformed the way things work in various industries. From the business arena to service sectors, tech innovations have stirred up revolutions across industry verticals. The medical and healthcare sector is not far from recognizing and reaping the benefits of latest technologies, which create new possibilities for advanced patient care.

If you are wondering about what these technologies can do for the healthcare sector, a few market stats will clear your doubts. Before turning to them, let’s get knowledgeable about these crucial tech advancements.

The central protagonists

When it comes to stirring up revolutions in the healthcare industry, none other than mobility and wearable technology emerge as the greatest discoveries. From tracking patients’ health in real-time to sharing crucial medical information, there’s nothing that mobility can’t help you achieve.

It’s high time to check a few stats in this context.

According to reliable market reports, 2016 will witness a dramatic surge in the production and sale of mobile devices in the healthcare industry. From critical collaborations to effective patient care, mobility solutions play the key role in revolutionizing numerous processes and functions. Some of the essential benefits of mobility solutions include:

• Patient care: Whether it’s tracking patients’ medical history or staying updated about checkups and treatment, mobility software solutions make every task simpler than ever!
• Backend support: Record maintenance, appointment scheduling, and billing hadn’t been easier. Mobility solutions have made it possible.

With these benefits along with 24*7 patient-monitoring, mobility seems to unlock numerous opportunities and possibilities for the healthcare sector. On that note, it’s high time to see what wearable technology can do for the medical sectors.

Healthcare industry and wearables

Although wearable technology hasn’t yet gained strong grounds, it is advancing quite steadily. As the wearable technology allows remote patient-care, hospital costs, and other related expenses reduce to a great extent; healthcare facilities are adopting this technology right away.

Let’s take a look at how wearable transforms operations and processes in the healthcare sectors.

Statistics speak

Crucial statistical insights reveal how wearable devices such as Smartwatch and fitness bands increase life expectancy. According to stats, nearly 56% of individuals believe that wearable devices have the power to increase life expectancy by almost 10 years. Another study suggests that the widespread use of fitness devices have decreased sick days by 44%.

These stats offer crystal clear insights into the real picture. Wearable devices are revolutionizing healthcare sectors and how! Take a look.

I.            Embracing IOT: Wearable technology will popularize Internet of Things and help you embrace the concept for future developments.

II.            Transform Big Data: With wearable devices, you can transform big data into crucial information capable of delivering actionable insights.

III.            Human-centered Designs: The wearable technology will popularize simple functioning and operations with human-centered designs.

Bringing change with innovation

While those are some of the crucial highlights of Wearable devices and technologies, users can reap more benefits. With the help of this particular technology, you will have the opportunity to track surgical recoveries, time taken for returning to work and manage catastrophe claims.

It’s quite evident that the future will bring great news for mobility and wearable!

As the latest offering by Apple, the Apple Watch is creating quite some buzz in the tech arena. That brings us to unraveling the reasons behind its unsurpassed popularity. Since its emergence, this piece of innovation has created two major divisions amongst its followers. The first group has all the techies, and the second group belongs to the fashionistas.

Such groupings give birth to a major debate about the Apple Watch. The question we come across is whether it’s a tech innovation or just another fashionable item.

Simply put, does the Apple Watch give rise to the age-old ‘Fashion vs. Technology’ controversy?

Let’s find out.

The technological aspects

With some of the exceptional tech features, the Apple watch is no less than a revolution. Once you get hold of it, you can bid goodbye to your Smartphones or other devices. Some of the unique features of this device include:

•      Wellness Tracker

The Apple Watch comes with a fitness tracker. If that sounds great, then the greatest is yet to be revealed. With this wearable on your wrist, you will not only know about your weekly fitness targets but also develop an idea of what you need to do to maintain it.

Quite intriguingly, the Apple Watch not only notifies you about the minutes you exercised but also about the minutes you stopped. Now, that’s a huge help for fitness freaks.

•     Book your cab

You don’t require your Smartphone when you have the Apple Watch with you. Just a few taps, and you can request your Uber right at the time you need it.

•    Paying for services

One of the prime benefits offered by Smartphones is the online payment facility. And that’s what you get with your Apple Watch too. Meet your friends for coffee, go on a shopping spree, and dine with your special someone. Your Apple Watch will help you make the payments instantly.

•     Staying connected to the world

Whether it’s posting a comment or ‘liking’ something on Facebook and Twitter, things have become much easier with the Apple Watch. The device will also keep you updated on what’s trending in social media.

With that brief overview of the technical aspects, it’s time we move onto discussing the style and fashion part.

        I.            Spectacular appearance

With a splendid and stunning aluminum case, the Apple Watch will inevitably be any fashionistas dream. No matter what you wear to work, your Apple Watch will completely complement every outfit.

      II.            Personalized aluminum case

Since the device comes with highly durable and personalized aluminum case, you will have the opportunity to team it up with any of your looks. Other than that, the aluminum case is changeable according to user preference.

The rebuttal

Although the Apple Watch brings smiles on the faces of every fashionista, it is essentially a tech tool. And with all that features and functionalities, you simply can’t tout it as just another style statement. Rather, it would be perfect to refer to it as one of the most ‘stylish tech accessories’. Your Apple Watch combines technology and fashion, thus uniting its two groups of followers.

Since the Apple Watch was launched, iWatch app developers have been regularly dabbling with the UI/UX design of the software. The company even launched a GUI PSD template for other designers to explore and react to the concept and capability of the Apple Watch. Lately, a lot of opinion has been presented about the Apple Watch. Tech experts like CNet believe that “the Apple Watch is the most ambitions, well constructed smart watch ever seen” and there are others like Endgadget who think that the device is “more status symbol than wearable revolutionary”.

What has been consistent across respondents is that the Apple Watch presents a unique platform for interactivity, has a perfect brand integration, supports several complication features, has intensive developer involvement and controls that work exceptionally well for the end user.

Here’s what some industry experts have to say about the gadget:

Scott Vachalek, iOS App Developer

Apple has covered a lot many practical applications with the iWatch apps, making it a device to look forward to. The implications of the Apple iWatch will certainly grow in the near future. What makes that iWatch so helpful is the notifications feature. Further, there would be several apps that can make a better use of the iWatch app notification. This include coupons that pop up right when a user passes a particular store and similar other things. Notifications on the iWatch app make it much less intrusive to be used, making it a practical device than smartphones.

Paul Goldstein, App Developer and Entrepreneur

Paul believes that the Apple Watch is a pretty ‘cool’ device. He works on both Android and iOS platforms and is a user of the Google Glass and Android Wear (Samsung). However, he has plans to work with the Apple Watch since it has got pretty interesting feature for a developer.

Wearable devices bring notifications right onto your wrists. Users just need to glace down to see every new email, every new message take calls and of course check the time. However, wearable devices like the Apple Watch let the user go beyond notifications. Developers are always coming up with cool stuffs and everything from music, navigation, fitness and games is just a tap away on the app store.

The only thing that a user would miss badly with the Apple Watch would be Wi-Fi or GPS integration. This can even act as a limitation until the expected features aren’t included.

Glyn Williams, iOS App Developer

Though not particularly crazy about apps that go on the wrist, Apple has been able to come up with a better platform for quick communication, reminders and notification. There are several things that come built in with the iWatch and added to this is a commercial opportunity for developers to fill up the app store with apps customized for iWatch.

Overall, the developer community has welcomed the iWatch with open arms. The best thing is the programmable features that allow any developer to try his/ her own app on the device. The concept of the smartwatch and iWatch apps is indeed to make ‘moving around’ more efficient, practical and safe.

No matter what experts say about the pricing and features of the watch, Apple has still managed to sell an impressive 3 million units during April-June, 2015. During its launch, Tim Cook had revealed that there are 3,500 Apple Watch apps available, but now that number has jumped up to 8,500, which is definitely a steep progress towards its march to match iPhone’s 1.5+ million apps.

Apple Watch received mixed reactions during its launch, and inspite of the price of at least USD 549, the cost of the basic version, there were loyal buyers clamouring for it. This bodes well for Apple Watch app devleopers who wish to learn from the first wave of app development that showed the below experiences.

Positives

The product was launched just 3 months ago and is still in its early stages of development, therefore, 8,500 apps do not sound bad at all. Plus there are a plethora of weather apps and basic entertainment apps like Shazam and TuneIN Radio that are currently available for the smart watch. Here are a few positive experiences –

• Apple has managed to get a few games for the watch. But, the games are limited to quizzes and trivia only because the small screen of the device prevents it from hosting full-fledged games.
• The presence of Twitter and E-mail is a boost for the Apple watch as people are expecting more and more apps in the social networking circle. We can soon witness the launch of the Facebook app for the watch as the company has promised to develop one soon.
• In terms of travel, you get apps like TripAdvisor and Yelp which inform you about the famous places around your location. While these two are third-party apps, Apple’s own “Find Near Me” is great for searching restaurants, banks, bars, etc. The app can also be used through Siri.
• Many parties are contributing towards Apple watch app development and thereby, the watch does not lack in sports related apps too. Onefootball is one of the most popular apps in terms of sports. It gives live updates on matches of your favourite team and notifies when there is a change in scores.
• The watch can perform basic calculation through various apps exclusively available for it. There are some Apple Watch apps available which store passwords for various social networking websites and e-mail service providers.

Negatives

There are a few negatives of the watch that Apple needs to look into, to give its users a better experience.

• The biggest flaw is that you cannot reply to e-mails. You can view it, but you cannot respond to it. This is a strange thing as Apple could have easily provided a Siri assisted input system for e-mail.
• Though it has apps in almost every category, it lacks in variety. The company should make sure that Apple Watch app development is in the right direction if it wants to floor Android based smart watches.

With these experiences, Apple Watch looks to have created a new tech frontier which promises to evolve for the better in the future.

The Apple Watch has been making ‘Stop Press’ news in the gadget world. This is the second time that Apple has been the first manufacturer to launch a completely new product genre in the market – after the iPad. Now, getting back to the iWatch, Apple has introduced a slew of new and exciting features with the OS 1.0. However, within a mere six weeks of iWatch release, Apple has already come up with a major update – the OS 2. Though this version wouldn’t be live until this fall, Apple has already introduced some interesting features as below:

1.       Expect apps going native

Apps that aren’t native would run on the current version of the iWatch but they aren’t allowed to tap into the device’s hardware (accelerometer, microphone, heart rate sensor or the Taptic Engine). However, things are going to be different with OS 2. Apple will open up the platform for developers willing to test the boundaries of the device.

2.       Activation Lock

The iWatch has been criticized for its less than adequate security features and how easy it would be to steal a device. OS 2 changes things for the better with the Activation Lock. After upgrading to OS2, users will be required to log into their iCloud account. Though this feature will be made optional, it certainly will be helpful.

3.       Siri, the almighty!

Siri will now work entirely upon verbal commands and you wouldn’t have to swipe or even glance at your device. This means that you can relax on your bed and get all the information you need with your voice and at your will.

4.       New faces

Everyone likes to personalize their device with background images that do not come along with the device. With OS2, users will be able to choose among their own photographs, a time lapse of skyline (this would look very interactive) or a changing gallery from your personalized library.

5.       Third party Complications

Complications are small pieces of information like time global time, temperature and your schedule and activity goals. OS 2 will let users add even more “Complications” that are relevant to your lifestyle.

6.       Time travel!

Well, not literally, but OS 2 presents you with an overview of your days spent. It will show you the mails you had missed yesterday or how will it be like outside when you embark upon your road trip tomorrow.

7.       Expect to be rewarded by Apple Pay

OS 2 will allow you to store debit/credit cards and retailer loyalty programs associated with Apple Pay. The process is still the same but this time picking a card might even bring you rewards.

8.       Mass transit

OS 2 will give you turn by turn directions instead of verbally interrupting your driving as the OS 1.0 did. Further, OS 2 maps will also contain mass transit information, including bus stops and walking routes.

9.       Wake me up

OS 2 offers easier interaction with your iWatch to check the time, date, battery percentage, and alarm when you wake up.

10.   Circle of 12

OS 1.0 limited your friends to only 12 slots. However, OS 2 rightly extends this to help create multiple groups of 12. You can even choose to add contacts right from your iWatch.

Do let us know your thoughts on the new iWatch update with your comments below.