Apple Watch features a lot of health sensors for tracking illnesses, infections and potential health issues that can all be sent to a local doctor through HealthKit. The original smartwatch, however, had many more health sensors attached.

Apple had to cut back on the number of health sensors due to manufacturing costs and the likelihood that regulatory authorities would get involved with the smartwatch, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal.

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Originally, the Apple Watch could track blood pressure, stress levels and other levels based on the conductivity of the skin, but some of these were removed because sensors didn't work or cost too much.

Glocuse levels were looked into by Apple and the company even had meetings with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over adding a glocuse tracker. 

It does paint a rather simple picture of what Apple wanted from its smartwatch, a health and fitness device to change how users exercise and live. Some of these features could be coming to the successor of the original device.

In the early days, Apple Watch had little functionality outside of health and fitness. But after the expenses were totted-up, Apple started work on more notification and app-based functionality, making it a fully fledged smartwatch.

This might be for the best since Apple wants to hit the mainstream market and not the niche audience interested in health and fitness. It does mean fitness geeks might want to hold off until the second generation before picking up the Apple Watch.

Apple Watch will launch this April around the world, and CEO Tim Cook hopes it will change the way people live their life, utilizing the full power of the Health app to change people's behavior around food and exercise.

TagsApple Watch, health sensors, fitness tracking, smartwatch, wearable