We all know how technologically advanced some of the latest iPhone and general Apple devices currently are. But Apple believes that their current software and hardware products are good enough to not just perform as computers but health detectors, including the iPhone. The firm confirmed their beliefs saying that an iPhone could be able to detect depression, anxiety and cognitive decline. This is all with the help of some digital clues derived from a user’s physical activity and sleep patterns.

However, this would mean that Apple goes through your phone in order to analyse all this and come up with the appropriate results. Luckily, the tech giant is aiming at following its own privacy protection policies by conducting the diagnostic work without sending any data to its servers.

As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Apple Inc. is currently working on this, “aiming for tools that could expand the scope of its burgeoning health portfolio.”

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The data that may be used includes analysis of participants’ facial expressions, how they speak, the pace and frequency of their walks, sleep patterns, and heart and respiration rates. They may also measure the speed of their typing, frequency of their typos and content of what they type, among other data points, according to the people familiar with the research and the documents,” partly reads the reports.

The company is also conducting research in partnership with the University of California to study stress, anxiety and depression.

It is emphasised that this project is at a very early stage and may even come to nothing. The main challenge would definitely be creating algorithms that are stable enough to accurately diagnose specific conditions.