“Future MacBook models could offer some of the same health and fitness tracking functions as provided by the Apple Watch, with the inclusion of a small bio-sensor in the casing near the trackpad that the user could access while typing on the keyboard,” Malcolm Owen reports for AppleInsider.
“The Apple Watch has been celebrated for its ability to monitor the user’s pulse through everyday life and in workouts,” Owen reports. “The fitness and health functionality, which most recently has extended to performing an ECG on the wrist as well as identifying potential Afib signs, is thought to have already saved lives.”
“While the use of a large circular sensor like on the back of an Apple Watch would be too big to include on an iPhone, Apple is considering ways to make similar functionality available in some of its larger products,” Owen reports. “A patent application, published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday and titled ‘Portable electronic device having an integrated bio-sensor,’ describes how Apple could implement such a sensor within the casing of a physically large device, such as a MacBook. ”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Could be used for security as well as health and fitness monitoring purposes.
Incorporating it into the Mac would be OK, but it seems like this could be made into a stand alone product that could work by plugging into the Mac and or iPhone in one way or another. That would make it backward compatible with numerous Macs and iPhones.
Yeah, a Magic ECG Pad. Too bad they took away the Home button and made the phone so thin. You could have put one finger on the Apple logo on the back and another on the Home button.