The health and fitness tracking category is still in its infancy, but it's already getting crowded.
Google announced this week during its Google I/O Developers Conference an initiative called Google Fit for Android that will serve as a fitness and health tracking platform across various platforms and wearables. The news, of course, comes just a few weeks after Apple launched HealthKit for developers that will do something very similar: provide a hub for users to keep track of fitness goals and health-related information.
Third-party app developers say they couldn't be happier that Google and Apple are joining the race to capture and make the most out of aggregating fitness data. Perhaps learning from past iOS/Android platform wars, many health and fitness apps planning to support both platforms, rather choosing one over the other. That's good news, presumably, for consumers, but it does mean extra work for the developers. Health and fitness developers will now need to create their own app and also look at integrating that app with both Google Fit and HealthKit.
HealthKit opened up its platform to developers with a few key app partners such as Adidas, Nike and Withings. All three companies are also early partners with Google Fit. RunKeeper is among the apps joining the Google side and hasn't made an announcement to join HealthKit just yet, although the company told Mashable it plans to do so soon.
While apps clamor to integrate with both platforms, could they eventually pick sides and focus their efforts once the platforms are fleshed out? According to Mio Global’s CEO Liz Dickinson, creator of the first wrist-worn heart rate monitoring technology brought to market (the MIO Shape), the answer is no.
"The whole point of open systems and interoperability is to give the user the most choice, freedom and flexibility," Dickinson said. "Picking sides would defeat that, and the Google vision is to allow data transfers from iOS apps to Google."
Although Fitbit isn't an official partner to HealthKit, Apple showed the company's logo on stage during the launch presentation and recently implied it's open to working with Google Fit too.
"We look forward to hearing more about Google Fit," a Fitbit spokesperson told Mashable. "We work with many partners to add value to our users’ experience to help them stay active, live better and reach their goals."
But it's uncertain how hardware will come into play with companies like Fitbit, which currently dominates the wearables fitness category with 67% marketshare in 2013, and 69% after Q1 2014, according to NPD. Nike — which was once a direct competitor to the Fitbit — laid off the majority of its fitness hardware team earlier this year in order to focus on bringing software to HealthKit and now, Google Fit.
Fitbit declined to comment on its hardware strategy but it said "we understand that consumers have a wide-range of needs and preferences when it comes to health and fitness tracking, and so we continue to innovate with a 'no one size fits all' focus in mind."
With this in mind, Google Fit may actually be good news for hardware vendors. Previously, developing for Android was fragmented among different device manufacturers and Google Fit aims to change that, according to Dickinson.
"Google Fit evens the playing field between iOS and Google because the fragmentation of Android made it difficult to develop for that environment," Dickinson added.
"Now, there will be a standard that will make it easier," she said. "And considering 50% of wearables are used in sports and fitness, the fact that Apple and Google both made announcements in this area reinforces that the category is really the driver behind the wearable market environment."
Based on what little information we know about both platforms, Google Fit appears to be slightly more open than HealthKit because it will allow the development to be platform agnostic: "Android users can have the same experience that iOS users have benefited from as a result of iOS standards," she said.
Third-party apps are still learning about the data sets and capabilities both of these platforms will enable. MyFitnessPal — the largest digital health platform with 65 million users and an early partner of the Amazon Fire smartphone — says its evaluating both platforms and looking for ways to get involved.
"As different types of data become available via these platforms (heart rate, blood pressure, etc.), new use cases and health solutions will emerge," Albert Lee, chief of product and cofounder of MyFitnessPal, said. "But the key for platforms like Google Fit and HealthKit to succeed will be to find and enable compelling use cases and applications. Basically, they’ll need killer apps to drive adoption."
Meanwhile, RunKeeper CEO Jason Jacobs says the move to work with Google Fit was a natural fit for the company and has its eyes on HealthKit too.
"We have more users [more than 30 million] than any other fitness tracker in the world, and this is great news for all of them," Jacobs said. "We definitely expect phones and wearables to take on even more fitness-friendly form factors and add more sensors. As this occurs, software will become even more critical as the intelligence within these devices."
The app market may be overflowing with too many health and fitness apps to keep track of these days, but most can't wait to ride the new wave coming in with the help of Google and Apple.
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