The Apple Watch Will Soon Track Fitness for Wheelchair Users
From: Wireless Design Magazine - 05/14/2016

Fitness trackers routinely measure physical activity such as running and
cycling and encourage people to stand up and walk around throughout the day.
But if you're in a wheelchair, you're out of luck.

Apple wants to change that with an upcoming Apple Watch feature announced
Monday. Instead of standing breaks, people in wheelchairs will be prompted to
wheel or spin their chairs around regularly. Apple will also start tracking
distance, speed and calories burned during wheelchair use, just as it does
for walking or running.

The $300-and-up Apple Watch appears to be the first fitness device to offer
extensive wheelchair capabilities.

People push their wheelchairs differently when approaching a ramp or
circumventing an obstacle. Apple also had to factor in different seat and
wheel heights and different surfaces, like carpeting or asphalt. And some
formulas change depending on whether the disability is from a spinal-cord
injury or muscular dystrophy.

The Apple Watch already has larger watch faces for the sight-impaired and a
mono audio mode for those with hearing difficulties in one ear. The upcoming
watchOS 3.0 update will also have an option for "displaying" the time using
Morse code and other tactile feedback.

Read the entire article at:
http://www.wirelessdesignmag.com/news/2016/06/apple-watch-will-soon-track-fitness-wheelchair-users
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/apple-watch-track-fitness-wheelchair-users-39822112

Related:
Apple brings Siri to Macs and lets it talk to apps
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36522510