Apple wanted to make a much better smart watch, according to this report from The Wall Street Journal. The article claims that Cook & Co. intended to add many other health-monitoring capabilities in addition to step and motion tracking, and heart rate sensor. Alas no technology was available at the moment or just wasn’t good enough.

The report claims that Apple engineers were exploring advanced heart activity tracking, blood oxygen levels, blood pressure and stress levels but couldn’t do it due to complexity and reliability issues.

Internally, the [Apple Watch] project was seen as a “black hole” that sucked in resources from elsewhere in the company. But in the end, not even the most advanced sensors that Apple could obtain or design were good enough to perform all those sophisticated health-monitoring functions. Let alone clear the regulatory hurdles that stand in the way of every health tracking device.

Nevertheless, the Cupertino-based giant tried its best and chances are some of these innovations will find its way in the next Apple Watch.

In the meantime, we’ll take whatever we can get from Apple, hoping that this is just a start with next products in the series adding many new capabilities that should help all of us lead healthier lives.

[Via: TheVerge]