14 DAY TRIAL // Late last week it was revealed that Google was preparing to unleash a new health-centric service called Google Fit, which would apparently be able to collect and aggregate info on certain wearable products and their companion apps.
But now the folks at Android Police have managed to get their hands on extra information regarding the upcoming service, shedding more light on Google’s intention when it comes to the health-related wearable ecosystem.
For starters, it seems like Google Fit won’t be coming out bearing this branding, rather it will be called Google Play Fitness.
This seems to be the final number for the search giant’s new fitness platform, and the best way to think about it is to compare it to Google Play Games, something which most of you are probably familiar with.
Google Play Games is an app that can be downloaded off the Play store and acts like an aggregate for your games. It also retains achievements and best rankings you achieved in your gaming adventures. All is possible as long the games you play support the service’s feats.
In a similar fashion, Google Play Fitness should be an app that aggregates, arranges and uses in a more intuitive way information gathered from apps taking advantage of the system. This might translate into the dedicated apps of certain wearable products, like smartwatches and fitness bands.
But at the moment, we can exactly tell you which apps will bare compatibility with Google Play Fitness, as that remains to be seen at the Google I/O towards the end of the month. The search giant is expected to announce a bunch of partnerships at the event and the plan is to allow developers to design as many fitness tracking apps.
Anyway, the report goes on to reveal how the backend and sparse collection of settings for the service will be synced to Google Play Services. And through these settings, users will be able to access their health data, ask questions related to Play Fitness or wipe out their data entirely.
The Play Services backend of Fitness will come with skills related to motor recognition, determining speed or distance traveled and leveraging data collected from other apps. So, bottom line is that Google will end up introducing Play Fitness when it unveils the new version of Play Services.
To conclude, it is pretty obvious at this point that Android Wear will have some level of Play Fitness integration.
It’s no surprise that Google is taking this step, considering Apple recently unveiled HealthKit and Samsung just unleashed Sami, two health-centric platforms which most likely bring about similar functionalities. The wearable battle is intensifying and Google needs to step up its game.