Apple is exploring an electronic tagging solution to make it easier for Apple Watch users to track their calorie and nutritional intake as part of a healthy lifestyle, as shown in a patent newly granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Many of today's healthy eating and diet-based food apps require users to manually input nutrition information into their mobile devices, whether by scanning barcodes with their phone's camera or inputting nutritional figures unit by unit. It's the sort of repetitive and time-consuming exercise that often causes users to give up on their diet-tracking, but Apple's invention offers a much more convenient solution.

Screen Shot 1
Titled "Electronic tag transmissions of custom-order nutritional information", the patent describes a system that allows food vendors to encode nutritional information into radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on the fly. The tags can be generated to accompany multiple-item orders at a food counter, as an attachment to the food packaging or as part of a purchase receipt. The tags can then be used to automatically transmit the nutrition data to the customer's NFC-capable device, such as an iPhone or Apple Watch.

In one example detailed in the patent, an RFID tag combines the multiple variables that make up a customer's bespoke food order – such as the bread, cheese, meat, and sauces in a hamburger – to generate accurate nutritional information for the end user. Once these details are transmitted to the user's mobile device, a health monitoring app subtracts the numbers from a daily calorie intake limit as defined in advance, allowing for a more measured, less bothersome way of recording eating habits.

If such a system ever came to market, its success would depend on the wide adoption of the technology by all kinds of food vendors – a difficult undertaking that suggests Apple's aims may not be so grand. As noted by AppleInsider, it's possible the RFID tagging could be used in company cafeterias and restaurants for the benefit of employees – in Apple Park, for example.

Apple has increased its focus on health and medical technology that integrates with its mobile devices in recent years, with iPhone and Apple Watch being at the center of its plans. HealthKit framework debuted in 2014, allowing developers to build health monitoring software that integrates with Apple's Health app, while Apple's open source framework ResearchKit was made available to developers in April 2015, enabling them to create their own iPhone apps for medical research purposes.

Top Rated Comments

Yvan256 Avatar
98 months ago
Oh great, even more electronic trash to pollute the planet. :(

I'm pretty sure QR codes are up to the task and would be a lot less expensive and add basically zero trash. There's even plant-based inks available.

I thought Apple were supposed to be a "green" company. :confused:
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
thisisnotmyname Avatar
98 months ago
That would work for prepared food items but those are already pretty dang easy to track. It's the homemade items where you need to figure out amounts of various ingredients or the non-chain restaurants where you have zero idea what is actually in the dish that are difficult to track and neither of those situations is going to have an RFID tag to scan.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
iKen1 Avatar
98 months ago
People should start counting chemicals in food not calories
I just counted the chemicals mine, and just like yours, it came to 100%.

I also just checked and it had 100% natural ingredients, not one of them was supernatural!
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
PizzaBoxStyle Avatar
98 months ago
Apple wants <McDonalds> to tag all of their food products with disposable RFID tags so that people can find out just how bad the food is and then stop eating it?

They are going to have to have some serious pull/influence to get this to be a thing.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
5105973 Avatar
98 months ago
Another joy in life ruined by math. ;)
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
timi22 Avatar
98 months ago
People should start counting chemicals in food not calories
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

election results 2024 live activities

Track 2024 U.S. Election Results Live on Your iPhone Lock Screen

Tuesday November 5, 2024 5:02 am PST by
Apple News is providing Live Activities support for the 2024 U.S. presidential election, allowing iPhone and iPad users to track electoral results in real time directly from their Lock Screen. The feature is rolling out for U.S. users over the course of Election Day, November 5, providing continuous updates of the electoral count. So if you're interested, you don't need to repeatedly check...
Generic iOS 18

Everything New in iOS 18.2 Beta 2

Monday November 4, 2024 12:34 pm PST by
Apple today seeded the second betas of upcoming iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2 updates to developers, and Apple is continuing to refine the Apple Intelligence capabilities. There are also a handful of smaller features that are worth knowing about. Find My Find My has a new option to Share Item Location with an "airline or trusted person" that can help you locate something that you've misplaced....
ios 18 2 chatgpt plus

iOS 18.2 Beta 2 Shows Siri ChatGPT Limit, Offers 'Plus' Upgrade Option

Monday November 4, 2024 10:54 am PST by
With the second beta of iOS 18.2 that's available for developers today, Apple has further fleshed out the ChatGPT integration that's available with Siri. In the Settings app, there's now a section that shows the ChatGPT daily limit, and offers an option to upgrade to the paid ChatGPT Plus plan. The beta includes an Advanced Capabilities section with a "Daily Limit" reading that shows up as...
iCloud General Feature

Here's What's New in Apple's Updated iCloud Terms and Conditions Taking Effect Next Week

Friday September 13, 2024 7:39 am PDT by
Apple has started notifying users about an upcoming revision to its iCloud Terms and Conditions, which takes effect on Monday, September 16. We compared the text of the upcoming iCloud Terms and Conditions with the current U.S. version from September 18, 2023 and identified four key changes: "Apple ID" references have been changed to "Apple Account" throughout. iCloud users must agree to ...
ipads early bf deals

The Best Early Black Friday iPad Deals

Tuesday November 5, 2024 7:02 am PST by
Black Friday is still a few weeks away, but you can already find great prices on numerous iPads, including the 9th generation iPad, 10th generation iPad, iPad Air, and iPad mini. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running. Of course, there is a chance that ...
M4 M4 Pro vs M4 Max Feature

When to Expect New M4 MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro Models

Monday November 4, 2024 2:36 am PST by
Apple's fall 2024 Mac announcements have included new iMac, Mac mini, and MacBook Pro models, all of which debuted with variants of Apple's M4 chip. Apple intends to update the rest of its Mac lineup with M4 series processors over the next 12 months, which will make it the first time that Apple has used the same chip generation across all of its Macs. This means we can expect new M4...
New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

10 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Thursday October 31, 2024 9:42 am PDT by
Apple is set to release iOS 18.2 in December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. There are a handful of new non-AI related feature controls incoming as well. ...