Apple Health, minus the ‘book’, announced

June 3, 2014 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/healthkit-apple-wwdc-2014-87_verge_medium_landscape.jpg” thumb_width=”170″ /]Breaking and developing… Apple announced their long-rumored health tracking app [TTA 22 Mar] this morning at their WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) in San Francisco. The consumer app is called Health (not Healthbook) and the developer platform HealthKit which are both part of iOS8 for iPhones and iPads in the fall. HealthKit facilitates pulling in of health data from third-party developers so that all health-related information for the consumer user is in one ‘hub’, similar to what Apple’s Passbook app does now as a ‘virtual pocket’ for airline boarding passes, movie tickets and coupons. Apple’s Craig Federighi, senior VP of software (pictured, courtesy of The Verge), made the announcement of the app and platform as part of the broader debut of iOS8 this morning.

Already on board is Mayo Clinic with an app that logs information like blood pressure, tracking normal range and it appears from reports that a severe enough deviation will initiate a contact with medical professionals. Nike was prominently featured as an app provider, further confirming that it’s leaving the hardware to their close corporate partner now that it’s out of the FuelBand business [TTA 22 April]. Epic Systems, a leading large system (hospitals/practices) EHR, appears to be integrating integrating its personal health record (PHR) with HealthKit, “suggesting a framework for getting information collected via HealthKit into patients’ MyChart (Epic PHR–Ed.) app.”

Editor Donna wonders if the still-in-early-days Better iPhone health personal assistant app (PHA), developed in conjunction with and backed by the aforementioned Mayo Clinic [TTA 23 Apr], will prominently integrate into Health. (We’ll cover when this develops, as we think it will–but mum’s their word for right now.)

In Mashable, the news was applauded by the CEO of leading app MyFitnessPal as a big validation. In his opinion, Apple would work with the existing field of apps and devices. Leading fitness bands Jawbone and Fitbit had no comment. Fitbit was shown during the presentation: CNET (one of six pictures here) and The Verge (article below). The latter makes the excellent point that Jawbone, Fitbit and the Nike FuelBand have all been sold in Apple’s stores.

The speculation is that Health will be a key part of the features of the iWatch to come, but Mashable in quoting Skip Snow of Forrester Research does bring up a significant wrinkle. Bluetooth LE as a network protocol chews up a lot of battery power, and bigger batteries make for clunky devices. Not exactly the Apple design ethic. Could it be that what’s delaying the iWatch is development of a new, more power-efficient network standard?

Update 3 June: With iOS8 having apps communicating with each other, have the Apple-oids opened the door for a Happy Hacking Holiday?  Stilgherrian in ZDNet points out that the ‘attack surface’ in info security-ese just got a whole lot larger. A future ‘oopsie’?

Hat tip to Editor Toni Bunting

More information: Mashable can’t stop mashing stories: Apple Reveals iOS 8: Interactive Notifications, Health App and More, Apple Gets Into Fitness Tracking With Health App and HealthKit for iOS 8, Apple’s First Step Into Health Tracking Is Small But Powerful. Mobihealthnews gets into the act noting Epic’s involvement: Apple reveals tracking app HealthKit and partners with Mayo Clinic, Epic. The Verge positively is on said verge with Apple HealthKit announced: a hub for all your iOS fitness tracking needs.

Smartwatches as the 2014 tablet, redux

August 2, 2013 | by

Mobihealthnews does a very good roundup of smartwatchesboth familiar and not in this 10 page report. Most are in kickstarter mode, raising funds and some may never see daylight, but all a Pointer to the Near Future:  Pebble, AGENT, Kreyos Meteor (sounds like a sportscar), Sony Smartwatch, i’m Watch (from Italia), Motorola’s MotoActv, Androidly, Neptune Pine, the unfortunately named GEAK Watch, Toshiba, the Qualcomm Zola and the rumored Apple iWatch and Google Watch. If you want to watch smartwatches more, there is a website called The Smart Watch Review. 10 smartwatches that may take on fitness trackers

Previously in TTA: Smartwatches as the 2013-2014 tablet…and will they knock out fitness bands? at the end of the ‘Apple-ologist” article. A situation we spotted two weeks ago.

Apple’s ‘tarnished luster’, Round 2

July 29, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/headeriwatchfinal.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]Today’s disclosure provides Apple-ologists with a major ‘what does this mean’ field day. The exec on the right no longer is on the executive team of the man on the left. On the right, Bob Mansfield, former SVP Technologies; on the left, CEO Tim Cook. AllThingsD last night (US Pacific Time) reported and confirmed that the early Sunday removal of Mr. Mansfield from the website, uncovered by the appropriately named MacRumors, meant precisely that. The ‘special projects’ assignment is usually a face-saver until the contract runs out.

We’ve gleaned some trouble in AppleLand on the odd reiteration of their eHealthy moves but slow progress on the iWatch [TTA 20 July]. It turns out that Mr. Mansfield had already announced his retirement from Apple in last year, but after some internal controversy was persuaded to return in October 2012 with a major title and compensation as head of Technologies until 2014. In this Editor’s experience, these lurebacks never turn out well even when beaucoup bucks are in the mix. We will leave it to the Apple-ologists to figure out the permutations and emanations.

Related: Will this add to the tarnish on the former Appleshine as Dave Logan had it just last week? [TTA 26 July]

Photo credit: 9to5Mac