Apple's Healthbook App: A Health And Fitness Smorgasbord

You might remember our report on leaked screen shots of iOS 8. We touched ever-so-slightly on Healthbook, the long-rumored fitness and health-tracking suite from Apple. 

Now 9to5Mac claims to reveal, in fine detail, just what Healthbook is all about. 

Citing "sources working directly on the initiative's development," the site gives us a peek at the design and operation of Healthbook. It'll track bloodwork, heart rate, hydration, blood pressure, physical activity, nutrition, blood sugar, sleep, breathing rate, oxygen saturation, weight and medical information ... just to name a few. (Via 9to5Mac)

Apple's M7 chip could be used to track physical activity and sleep, and medical information and nutrition are usually entered by the user ... but what about the other categories? (Via Apple)

A writer for GigaOM says, easy — with wearable tech, of course.

"Those could be existing wearables ... provided Apple offers an API for the Jawbones of the world. Or it could tell us about what features an Apple-designed wearable might have." (Via GigaOM)

And by an Apple-designed wearable, the writer is referring to that iWatch we've been talking about for ages. The watch could include different sensors for tracking all the data categories.

Because as MacRumors points out: ​"Apple has been hiring health and fitness experts to build out its iWatch team, and is rumored to be using this expertise in the development of its first wearable device."

And those hires include the likes of Jay Blahnik, a fitness expert who also worked as a consultant for Nike, and Dr. Michael O'Reilly, chief medical officer for a company that created devices for measuring oxygen saturation. (Via 9to5Mac, AppleInsider)

Based on Apple's recent hires and the monstrous leak from 9to5Mac, it's entirely possible the company could create this suite of health and fitness trackers and launch it along with iOS 8.

Still, the site reminds us of Apple's nature: "It is possible that the application's launch could be pushed back to a future operating system version or canceled entirely."