Apple Watch Still Can't Touch WHOOP and Oura, Bloomberg Says

Bloomberg just published an analysis that confirms what a lot of us have suspected for a while now: the new Apple Watch added a few health features, but it still doesn't stack up against dedicated trackers like WHOOP or Oura Ring. Why? And what would Apple need to do to change that?

What Bloomberg Actually Says

Mark Gurman, one of the best-informed Apple journalists out there, breaks down how Apple adds more sensors and metrics with each Watch generation—blood oxygen, skin temperature, sleep apnea detection. But here's the thing: the problem isn't the hardware. It's what Apple does with the data. Or rather, what it doesn't do.

WHOOP tells you one number every morning—recovery score—and based on that, it recommends how hard you should train that day. Oura does the same with its Readiness Score. Apple Watch shows you a bunch of graphs and leaves you to draw your own conclusions.

That's the fundamental difference. Most people don't want to study heart rate variability (HRV) charts. They want to know: "Should I run hard today, or just take a walk?"

Where Apple Falls Behind

Three specific things Bloomberg mentions—and I agree with from my own experience:

1. Sleep tracking is still weak. Apple Watch can distinguish sleep stages, but the analysis is shallow. WHOOP shows me every morning exactly how many minutes I spent in REM and deep sleep, how that compares to my personal average, and what it means for today. Apple Watch tells me I slept 7 hours and 12 minutes. Thanks—I knew that because I set an alarm.

2. No concept of daily strain. WHOOP has strain—a number from 0 to 21 that reflects how hard I pushed that day. Apple has the Move Ring, which is basically a calorie counter. Strain factors in heart rate, heart rate variability, duration, and intensity. The Move Ring fills up if I'm nervously pacing around the office all day.

3. No coherent narrative. WHOOP connects sleep, strain, and recovery into one cycle. Apple Watch has the Health app with 47 different metrics, but none of them talk to each other. It's like having an encyclopedia with no table of contents—the information is there, but making sense of it is on you.

Where Apple Actually Wins

It'd be unfair not to mention what Apple does better. And there's plenty.

Apple Watch have a screen. I can read messages, take calls, navigate. WHOOP can't do any of that—and doesn't want to. They're two completely different products that just happen to overlap in health tracking.

Apple also has a massive advantage in ecosystem lock-in. If you have an iPhone, iPad, and Mac, Apple Watch just slot into your life without thinking. WHOOP requires its own app and its own subscription.

And then there's pricing. Or rather, the pricing model. You buy Apple Watch once. WHOOP you pay for monthly—and without the subscription, it's a dead piece of plastic on your wrist.

Why This Doesn't Surprise Me

Apple is a company that makes products for everyone. WHOOP makes a product for people who want specific answers about their body. Those two approaches don't mix easily.

When Apple adds an advanced metric, it has to explain it to a billion users. So it simplifies it until it loses value for people who actually need it. WHOOP can assume its users know what resting heart rate (RHR) is and just show them the 30-day trend.

Bloomberg hints that Apple is working on a fitness band without a screen—something I've written about before. If Apple released a dedicated health tracker with better software analysis, things could change. For now, though, Apple Watch are great smartwatches that happen to track some health data. WHOOP is a great health tracker that does nothing else.

What to Take Away

If you wear an Apple Watch and you're wondering whether you need WHOOP—it depends on what you want from a tracker. Do you want a watch that does everything with health as a bonus feature? Apple Watch are fine. Do you want a tool that tells you every morning what state you're in and how to train accordingly? Apple isn't there yet.

Bloomberg summed it up elegantly. I'll sum it up my way: Apple makes a Swiss Army knife. WHOOP makes a scalpel. Both have sharp edges, but for surgery, I'm taking the scalpel.