Is Apple Getting Into the Food Biz?

This is hearsay. It’s a rumor.

It was published on the website macrumors.com. So we don’t know how true it is. Connor Jewiss, a UK based technology writer – who does have a stellar reputation and has in the past given us previews of new technologies before they were released, tweeted that he has actually seen some elements of the new iOS 15 which is set to debut in early June. There will be no doubt that there will be a lot of new features that are of interest, but for me the one highlight that he shared could be a food game changer.

He lists that there will be new food tracking and other new features in Health. We have no idea what that means, but we can only imagine that it should include a way to prepare a list of foods that we consume, or should consume, based on attributes or preferences that we enter into Health. Or it may contain an easy way to identify ingredients in certain products that we may want to avoid. Or list nutritional information. As I said at the outset – all this is conjecture – we don’t know what or if what Jewiss tweeted has any merit, but with the trend of major supermarket chains poaching IT folks from the likes of Amazon and Microsoft, it makes sense to see Apple get into the food game.

As they build out their offerings one thing we should all be watching carefully is how far and deep could they go? Does it stop with a rich database of food information? Or does it take on third parties like Instacart and Shipt and create a much richer and more convenient shopping experience that allows the supermarket chains to take back ownership of the UX? After all let’s remember that most supermarket apps are already available in the App store.