The non-invasive glucose monitoring sensor project within Apple has gained a new decorated executive to lead the initiative, reports Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman in a new article.
According to Gurman, the project is now lead by Tim Millet, who’s described as a veteran Apple executive who’s also been a “key figure” in the successful transition of Apple silicon away from Intel. Millet has been an Apple employee for over 19 years, and is one of two top-ranking deputies for Johny Srouji, SVP of Hardware Technologies.
The project has been left without a dedicated leader for a few months now since the unexpected passing of Bill Athas, who lead the project up to the point of his death last year. Beyond this project, Millet has been leading several other teams inside Apple working on various next-generation Apple silicon chips and other advanced components.
Athas was also head of the secretive Exploratory Design Group (XDG), who continues to work on the project under the helm of Millet. Earlier this year, Gurman provided details surrouding the covert team, who’s primary responsibility is to develop and assess the viability of next-generation technologies and whether they can be deployed at scale in Apple’s commercial products.
The project ultimately reports to Srouji’s semiconductor team, as the glucose monitoring system primarily relies on intricate chips and sensors that direct beams of laser into the user’s skin to determine the amount of glucose in the user’s blood. Advanced machine learning algorithms utilize the reflected laser to determine glucose concentration in the blood.
Apple Watch glucose sensor several years away
Gurman adds that the non-invasive sensor – which the company has been working on as far back as 2011 – still remains “several years away” from a commercial launch on a future Apple Watch model.
Apple has been making smaller and smaller prototypes of the sensor as it had internally proven its viability, and the most recent prototypes are said to resemble an “arm worn-gadget” roughly the size of an iPhone.