Apple Unveils Major Health & Fitness Upgrades, Including Lab Tests

The tech giant is making its biggest push yet into recovery and longevity, with a daily readiness score, more frequent HRV tracking and direct lab ordering

At Apple’s event today, the tech giant unveiled a sweeping set of new features across Apple Watch and the Health app. They include a daily readiness score, significantly more frequent heart rate variability tracking, a Health Age metric, AI-powered health insights, at-home movement assessments and the ability to order lab testing directly through the app.

Apple also launched two new Apple Watches: Ultra 4 and Series 12.

The tech company is seemingly responding to how other wearable companies like Whoop and Oura have built their businesses around interpreting workout and health metrics for consumers. As the wearable competition heats up, Apple is using its resources and data to heat up the competition against other recovery wearables, longevity platforms, and digital health companies.

One of the biggest additions is a new Readiness score for Series 12 and Ultra 4, the latest launches in the Apple Watch lineup.

The feature gives users a daily score from zero to 10 based on factors including sleep, activity, training load and physiological data, along with recommendations ranging from “Recover” to “Go For It.”

As Whoop has long centered its experience around recovery, while Oura and Garmin have increasingly translated sleep, HRV and activity data into daily guidance, Apple is now taking the same approach.

The company is also collecting considerably more data to support such a metric. Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 will measure heart rate every five seconds during the day, while HRV can be measured as frequently as every five minutes, 24 times more often than before.

Apple is also separating HRV into a recovery-focused measure intended to capture shorter-term stress and recovery and an overall HRV metric designed to provide broader health context.

Apple’s New & Improved Health App

On the iPhone, Apple is redesigning its Health app around Apple Intelligence, with new personalized insights across sleep, fitness, heart health, readiness, vitals and cycle tracking. The shift addresses a longstanding problem: ample data without any actionable translation.

Apple Watch can tell users their resting heart rate, HRV, VO2 max, sleep duration, training load and dozens of other metrics. The new Health experience is designed to connect those data points and surface interpretations of such metrics.

Apple has steadily expanded where and how it can collect fitness data, including bringing heart rate sensing to AirPods and introducing more personalized AI coaching through Workout Buddy. Its recent watchOS updates have also pushed the Watch toward becoming more of an active health and fitness assistant.

Health Age Brings Apple Into the Longevity Boom

A new Longevity section in the Health app will include Health Age, a metric designed to compare aspects of a user’s health with their chronological age. The calculation can incorporate measures including VO2 max, resting heart rate, sleep and HRV, along with lab values such as A1c and LDL.

The concept will be familiar to consumers who follow the longevity space. Biological-age-style scores and healthspan metrics have become increasingly common as wellness companies try to distill complicated health information into one number. Whoop, for example, has made Healthspan a major piece of its platform.

Apple is also now moving beyond data generated by its own devices. Users in the U.S. will be able to purchase a package covering more than 50 lab biomarkers for $119 through the Health app and complete testing at roughly 2,000 Quest Diagnostics locations.

Apple Enters the Blood-Testing Race

Companies such as Function Health have built businesses around giving consumers easier access to lab testing, while longevity platforms increasingly combine blood work with wearable and lifestyle data. Whoop and Oura already offer similar blood testing services through their apps.

Apple is adding at-home movement assessments as well. Using an iPhone camera and Apple Watch, the system can evaluate areas including strength, flexibility, balance, movement mechanics and VO2 max. Apple says on-device vision models provide feedback without recording or storing video. The company can then use those results to provide more context or recommended exercises.

Women’s Health, Workout Buddy Upgrades

Apple is also expanding women’s health tracking with new support for perimenopause and menopause in Cycle Tracking. Users will be able to log their life stage, monitor symptoms and track changes over time, while some users over 40 may receive notifications when cycle patterns appear consistent with perimenopause.

The update builds on Apple’s continued investment in women’s health, an area that has also become increasingly competitive among wearable companies.

Workout Buddy is getting an upgrade, as well. Apple’s AI-powered fitness coach will be able to work directly from Apple Watch without requiring an iPhone nearby and will draw from more fitness data to personalize its coaching.

GymKit is also expanding, including the ability for AirPods Pro 3 users to send heart rate data through an iPhone to compatible treadmills and indoor bikes.