Apple Wellness+ could unify Fitness & Health across Apple's ecosystem

Rumors suggested that Apple Health+ was going to be a thing, possibly replacing the Apple Fitness+ subscription, and introducing Apple Intelligence to the health app. A lot of those rumors seemed fishy on the surface, as Apple rarely jumps into something so brazenly, but the plans are beginning to solidify.

Eddy Cue took over Apple Health when Jeff Williams retired, and he seems to be taking a different approach for the product. Instead of looking for a fast track to additional subscription revenue, he is breaking up the impending feature set into smaller releases.

This decision also occurred after the clear failure of ChatGPT's health integrations. The non-deterministic nature of AI models and the specificity of health data didn't mix and resulted in the same data being interpreted wildly differently with each query.

The rumors surrounding Health+ started with the idea that Apple would have some kind of AI doctor, which seemed nonsensical on the surface. There is no world where Apple would be giving medical advice from the position of a "doctor" in any shape or form – that's just asking for regulatory trouble.

Internally, Apple has been prepping a lot of references and videos that Apple Intelligence would point the user to. Rather than generating a result entirely, the AI would arrive at a result using its analysis, but plotting that final non-deterministic output through a decision tree that resulted in a consistent, predictable result.

Apple's position in this sector is very advantageous. Users trust them with their data and there is a potentially decade-long trove of data on everything from heart rate to eating habits just waiting to be accessed and analyzed (privately) by Apple Intelligence.

It's a clear and obvious use case.

However, Apple can't do more than offer surface-level datapoints and recommend users discuss results with a physician. That said, there is nothing stopping Apple from pointing users to resources.

Apple Health as a service

The new Apple Intelligence rollout will begin with iOS 26.4 in March or April. I'm sure the company is eager to prove the new Apple Foundation Models are highly capable throughout the Apple ecosystem, but doing too much at once would be a problem.

Apple would also risk alienating customers if it tried putting Apple Health's new features behind a paywall right away. Especially since there is a limit to the number of professionally produced medical videos that could launch for the service. There are only so many ways to describe a specific issue that could be determined with Apple Health data.

I do think that enriching Apple Fitness+ with health-adjacent features makes a lot of sense, though "Health+" isn't a good name for that. If I had to pin a name down, it would be Apple Wellness+. Get something that doesn't favor health or fitness too much in its naming and convey that it's about both and more in one.

Apple Wellness+ should be a collection of tools and services for users. It should encompass Apple's entire ecosystem.

Here's how I could see both free and premium content falling out across Apple's ecosystem for Apple Wellness+:

• Apple Health chatbot with daily check-in and coaching, encouraging users to drink water, brush their teeth, and eat healthy.
• If abnormal stats appear in Health, ask the user how they are feeling, then link them directly to one of the professionally produced videos or research papers.
• Via the interactive Health tools, offer to enroll users in Apple Research on topics that apply to them.
• Log meals via Visual Intelligence or Siri directly into the Health app.
• Offer a daily or weekly Apple Health podcast about healthy lifestyle choices, requiring the Apple Wellness+ subscription (included with Apple One, replacing Fitness+).
• Let users view caloric data from recipes in Apple News and log portions of meals directly to Apple Health if the meal is prepped.
• Apple Music Moods and Sleep categories get an overhaul, helping users with scientifically proven playlists to achieve certain goals.
• Apple TV introduces a cooking or fitness-related reality style show that has periodic episodes that help educate users on living healthy within the Apple ecosystem.
• Apple Journal gains a Wellness feature for showing health stats beyond just fitness rings.
• Apple Books gains a Wellness category that offers books and audiobooks for paying subscribers.

Apple has a lot of services and many ways to tie health into more parts of its ecosystem without it making users feel like it's an unnecessary subscription or grift for more revenue. A slow rollout of such features and a wider ecosystem push could help make Apple more visible as a health and wellness brand, thus making users more open to the idea of relying more on them for health, fitness, and mental wellbeing.

Apple Health initiatives mean more privacy for users

There are a lot of third-party apps on the App Store that target these categories already; however, many are a privacy nightmare or no better than pseudoscience. They also charge incredible fees for their services that do little more than existing services that are either free or relatively inexpensive.

I don't like when Apple inevitably Sherlocks a service or app I enjoy because of how it can negatively impact a developer. However, I'm also a fan of how Apple's apps and integrations work and want to see more features there.

As I described in this bulleted list, a feature that was previously rumored, Apple could allow users to easily log meals directly in Apple Health. Now, this would step on apps like Foodnoms' toes, but I think it would also help to highlight their utility. Sure, Apple could let you log a meal with Visual Intelligence, but it seems unlikely that the company would maintain a database of public user entries for reference and re-logging.

So I expect that developers like Ryan Ashcraft could pivot to make their app more functional and appealing in spite of Apple's push into their space. In fact, new APIs could be born of such features, enabling the third-party apps to become even better.

However, like with Apple buying DarkSky and making Weather better, thus rendering the need for privacy-violating third-party weather apps, it could do the same with Health. MyFitnessPal, for example, deserves to be eliminated due to its exorbitant prices and terrible privacy policy and data collection habits.

All eyes are on Apple's move in the Health space. It may be easy to forget, but Apple Watch happened under Tim Cook, and he has made it a top priority for Apple to focus on health recommendations and interventions. This technology surrounds us, so the least it could do is make our lives a little bit better and healthier too.