Apple charging for Health+ features would be an error, the reported change of plan is welcome
New AI-infused Apple Health features won't be a paid service according to a new report. They'll be available to everyone, starting in iOS 27.
Apple is reportedly dropping plans to launch a paid Health+ subscription service within iOS 27, according to a new report.
According to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, Apple plans instead to take the features intended for the paid platform and roll them into the existing, free-to-use Health app. That’ll start with this summer’s reveal of iOS 27, the report says.
The report’s sources say Eddy Cue – the man in charge of Apple Health – decided to abandon the plans because it wasn’t a very good fit. I would agree with that. Apple gatekeeping services that could make their users’ healthier and placing them behind a paywall is at odds with the company’s mission to use it’s available technology to make everyone healthier – whether they can afford a subscription for access to more data points.
Gurman writes (via 9to5Mac): “Apple now plans to take some of the features it had planned for the artificial intelligence-powered offering and roll them out individually over time within its Health app.”
So what will those features be? Well, Gurman has some insight into that too. He says there’ll be Apple-created video content “designed to explain medical conditions, guide users through training plans and offer wellness education.”
There’ll also be personalised AI-generated health recommended that’ll be informed by Health app data. These two features are just the beginning, the report says, with the company planning to add more over time.
Apple currently offers paid services for News, Fitness, Music, Gaming, TV and the new Creators Studio. However, Apple’s brags over saving lives with Apple Watch features would ring hollow if it started putting the best new health features behind paywalls.
Chris Smith
