I tried the new Apple Health app, and it’s everything I wanted from Google Health

I’ve been straddling the line between Google Health and Apple Health since I bought my first wearable. I went with the Fitbit Charge HR for a few weeks before returning it for an Apple Watch Sport in 2015, and went on to wear an Apple Watch for a decade. A lot has changed, with Google acquiring Fitbit and overhauling the platform since then, culminating in the recent Google Health rebrand.

I played around with the new Apple Health app in the developer beta of iOS 27.2, and I’m convinced it’s what Google Health should’ve been in the first place. I also have a hunch as to why the Apple and Google health apps feel so different, and the core problem won’t be easy to solve.

The redesigned Apple Health app requires new hardware, and that’s arguably the worst thing about it. If you have an iPhone capable of running Apple Intelligence — that’s the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, or newer — you can enjoy the new Apple Health app when it drops publicly later this year. Those with older iPhones will unfortunately be stuck with the existing Apple Health app, and won’t be able to upgrade. This is much more restricted than the new Google Health app, which works with devices running at least Android 11 or iOS 16.4.

I installed the iOS 27.2 developer beta on my iPhone Air and put on my Apple Watch Ultra 3 to try out the new app, and a few things worked right off the bat. The Apple Health app now opens to an Insights tab that finally includes your Activity Ring data front and center. Before, you’d have to juggle between the Fitness and Health apps to see all your Apple Watch metrics. Another highlight is the Longevity tab, which estimates your health age using your Apple Watch’s underlying fitness data.

Better yet, you can take personalized tests using your Apple Watch and your iPhone’s camera to get a more accurate health age estimate. These use vision-based AI models to analyze your health in specific tests, and since you can take them again at any time, they can be used to track your progress. One such evaluation is a VO2 max test, which measures the maximum amount of oxygen your body can take in during extreme exercise. It’s the first manual VO2 max test for Apple Health, and there’s no Google Health equivalent.

I was immediately able to see my health age in the Apple Health app, but I’ll need to give it more fitness, sleep, and test data before getting an accurate figure. This is a feature the Google Health app doesn’t have. It’s a popular health metric supported by brands like Garmin, WHOOP, and Oura. It’s clear Apple is trying to join this exclusive tier of health-first wearable brands.

I wasn’t able to try the other new Apple Health feature, “Readiness.” Apple is behind the curve, as it’s only now adding a readiness score to the Apple Watch. Google Health has one that estimates your body’s readiness to take on the day and planned workouts with a score measured on a one-to-100 scale.

Apple’s score is a bit different, as your Readiness falls on a zero-to-10 scale, and comes with one of four simple recommendations: “Recover,” “Pace Yourself,” “Ready,” or “Go For It.” I like the streamlined approach of the Apple Watch’s new readiness score, but my Apple Watch isn’t compatible with it.

That’s a bummer. I paid $800 for my Apple Watch Ultra 3 a year ago, and now it won’t get the latest Apple Health features. You need the latest Apple Watch Series 12 or Ultra 4 to get it, and this limitation sets a dangerous precedent. Am I expected to shell out $800 for a new Apple smartwatch every single year?

There is a reason for the restriction, at least. The readiness score uses the Health Sensing System, which includes new optical and electrical heart rate sensors and works with the upgraded S11 chip. Heart rate is now measured every five seconds, and heart rate variability is measured up to 24 times as often as before. My Apple Watch Ultra 3 simply doesn’t have the hardware to provide an accurate readiness score, at least according to Apple.

What’s clear even from a bare-bones version of the new Apple Health app is that Apple is taking a data-driven approach. Apple Intelligence provides short, punchy AI summaries of your metrics in the Insights tab of the new app. However, these summaries don’t appear to offer advice or to be overly wordy. They’re still backed by data points, graphs, and charts, just like the Apple Health app of old.

Look at the Today tab of Google Health next to the Insights tab of Apple Health, and you’ll immediately notice the difference between the two apps. Both apps dynamically adjust what’s shown on these pages based on the time of day and the data being recorded. In the morning, Apple Health and Google Health will show a recap of your sleep. In the evening, the two apps might analyze your activity data for the day or summarize a recent workout. The contrast lies in how each app chooses to display this data using AI.

Google uses the Google Health Coach, an AI-powered assistant designed to help you improve your fitness and health, to break down your day. You can ask it health questions or to build you a training plan. It’ll provide summaries of your data, identifying key points and potential action items. But they all come with an important disclaimer: “AI responses may contain mistakes, not for medical advice.” This warning is important because the Google Health coach just doesn’t stop talking.

Take a look at the photo above to see how the Google Health app (left) and the new Apple Health app (right) each show health and fitness data after a run. The Google Health app uses a handful of sentences to recap the run, but it really conveys only two specific data points: the run duration and the final-mile split. The new Apple Health app doesn’t go on tangents about specific workouts or constantly suggest what to do next. Instead, it focuses on the bigger picture, like where your Activity Rings and vitas are trending.

I should emphasize that this is the first iOS 27.2 developer beta that includes the new Apple Health app. It can, and likely will, change before its official release. But based on what I’ve seen so far, between my own testing and Apple’s showcase, I’m incredibly optimistic.

I’ve used Google Health religiously for months with the Fitbit Air, and I constantly get the feeling like the Health Coach’s chatty nature is to make up for a lack of data. It doesn’t get the basics right — like automatic activity tracking — so it has to state the obvious: reminding me to drink water, telling me that the desert is incredibly hot (trust me, I know), or yelling at me for forgetting to wear the tracker to sleep.

Instead, Google should’ve taken the approach Apple is employing. It could’ve used AI to make health data easier to understand, but the Health Coach’s verbose responses only make things more confusing.

I’m using a $99 Fitbit Air with the Google Health app and a $799 Apple Watch Ultra 3 with the new Apple Health app, and that’s part of the issue — but not in the way you think. Google has to optimize the Google Health app to work with both the cheapest Fitbit trackers and the most expensive Pixel Watch 5. I’m sure using a Pixel Watch 5 with better sensors and dual-band GPS would give the Google Health Coach more data to work with, but it’s designed to be conversational and long-winded regardless.

I want to praise the Google Health app for supporting so many devices, but that may be precisely the problem. Apple decided to only support the devices truly built to handle the experience it wanted to deliver, even if it meant excluding millions of older phones and smartwatches. Google’s device inclusivity and overreliance on Gemini might be hurting it, because I already prefer the empirical approach of the new Apple Health app.

Months into my Google Health journey, I’m suspicious about the platform’s accuracy. It’s hard not to be when the Health Coach itself tells me its insights and analysis may contain mistakes. There are some things AI shouldn’t guess about, and your health is one of them. It’s early, but it looks like Apple understands that.