HealthKit

Have any Health information at a glance with HealthFace for Apple Watch

Steffen Reich ∙ Updated May 17, 2018

The developer team at Crunchy Bagel has taken the wraps of HealthFace, a product designed to assist regulars of Apple’s Health app in monitoring their vital data on the fly. HealthFace is capable of reaching deep into your personal Health catalogue and displaying virtually any data point in form of a complication on your wrist.

For users constrained to keeping a close eye on their vitals, food intake or other health related parameters, the app sets out to become a quasi extension of Apple’s Health app.

How to sign up as an organ donor from the Health app on your iPhone

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated December 6, 2022

If you use your iPhone to keep a digital record of information about your health, known as your Medical ID, then you should also know you can use your iPhone's Health app to sign up as an organ donor.

We know this isn't for everyone, and you should seriously consider whether or not this is for you before you just go in and blindly sign up. But if you want to register as an organ donor from your iPhone, we'll show you how to do that.

Android Wear for iOS found incompatible with Apple’s HealthKit

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 2, 2015

Google's Android Wear for iPhone software debuted earlier this week and while we suspected ahead of its release it might not offer tight integration with iOS like the Apple Watch does, I don't think many people expected it to be incompatible with HealthKit, Apple’s platform for developers of health and fitness apps.

Sadly, that's exactly what transpired here.

As discovered by BuzzFeed, the decision to make Android Wear incompatible with HealthKit was entirely Google's as the search company wants iOS users who own Android Wear devices to log their steps and physical activity through its own Google Fit dashboard.

LA’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center integrates Apple’s HealthKit into patient files

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 27, 2015

Researches at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles are bringing data from Apple’s health-tracking platform, HealthKit, into patient files, according to a Bloomberg report Monday.

The unusual move is designed to provide doctors with a more complete overview of their patients' health, giving them another set of comprehensive health data to take into account as they make clinical and medical judgments.

Already the hospital has updated its online medical records system, turning on access to HealthKit for more than 80,000 patients, Darren Dworkin, chief information officer at Cedars-Sinai, told the news organization.

IBM expanding partnership with Apple to transform medical research

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

IBM announced on Monday that it will be expanding its partnership with Apple in an effort to help transform medical research. Utilizing its Watson artificial intelligence tech, it's created a new Health Cloud platform that can support health data gathered by iOS apps using Apple's ResearchKit and HealthKit frameworks.

Apple first introduced HealthKit in the summer of last year, as a platform for developers to create apps that integrate with iOS 8's new Health application. This year, it decided to build on that premise with ResearchKit, which allows medical researchers to collect app data from users with diseases such as diabetes or cancer.

IBM will push things even further with Health Cloud, which will de-identify and store health data in a secure, scalable cloud system that enables researchers to access and share data in an open ecosystem environment. Apps that use HealthKit and ResearchKit will be able to easily store, aggregate and model data, enriching research.

More than half of top U.S. hospitals now trialling Apple’s HealthKit

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 5, 2015

According to Reuters Thursday, HealthKit trials are moving away from universities and into hospitals, with more than half of the nation's top 23 hospitals having already rolled out their own trials of the HealthKit platform, or “are in talks to do so”. HealthKit allows third-parties to integrate and interact with the user's health database on iOS 8 devices.

Fourteen of the nation's top 23 hospitals confirmed to the news gathering organization participating in the HealthKit roll-out, including at least eight of the 17 hospitals on the U.S. News & World Report's Honor Roll list, which ranks the best hospitals in the U.S.

Apple being questioned by the FTC regarding health data protection

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

The US Federal Trade Commission is seeking assurances from Apple that it will prevent sensitive health data from being used without the users' consent, reports Reuters. The outlet says Apple representatives have met with FTC officials multiple times in recent months to discuss the matter.

More specifically, the FTC wants to be sure that Apple will not sell health data collected by its upcoming smartwatch and other devices to third party marketers, or allow app developers to do so. It also wants to be sure proper measures are being taken to protect the data against malicious attacks.

Argus activity tracker, now with iPhone 6 support and iOS 8 Health sync for workouts and calories

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 23, 2014

I'm a fitness fan and Azumio's Argus is one of my favorite applications to track my steps, runs and bicycle rides. As I stopped using any health and fitness app which doesn't export data to Apple's Health application in iOS 8, I was pleasantly surprised learning that Azumio just issued a nice Argus refresh which rectifies the problem.

For starters, the new version 3.6 now runs natively on the bigger iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus screens. More importantly, Argus can now export your workouts and calories to the Health app.

Download Argus free in the App Store.

Fitbit currently has no plans to integrate with iOS 8 Health app

Cody Lee ∙ October 8, 2014

It looks like Fitbit won't be sharing data with the new iOS 8 Health app anytime soon. Responding to a question in support forums, a representative for the company said that it "currently has no plans to integrate with HealthKit."

The rep adds that HealthKit is an interesting new platform that Fitbit will be watching as it matures, as it looks for opportunities to improve the user experience. "But at the moment," he says, it's working on "other exciting projects."

Jawbone launches all-new HealthKit-enabled Up software, no fitness band required

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 17, 2019

San Francisco, California headquartered wearable products company Jawbone on Monday released a brand new Up software for the iPhone in the App Store (not to be confused with the firm's existing Up app).

Announced earlier in the month, the app features iOS 8 HealthKit integration, personalized fitness advice and other features, but without requiring Jawbone's UP or UP24 fitness band.

The app lets you share Up's food, fitness and sleep tracking data with iOS 8’s Health app, and vice versa. Jawbone has opened up its platform to third-party development so more than a hundred health and fitness applications and accessories for the iPhone and iPad now integrate with Up, with or without HealthKit, including Strava Running & Cycling, Wello, IFTTT, RunKeeper and MyFitnessPal.

New App Store section features “Apps for Health,” a collection of apps that support HealthKit

Timothy Reavis ∙ Updated January 30, 2018

The App Store has been updated Saturday afternoon with an "Apps for Health" section in the Featured tab, which lists several apps that use iOS 8's Health app to aggregate health and fitness data into a unified location for users.

After delaying HealthKit-compatible apps due to a critical bug in the first version of iOS 8, Apple released iOS 8.0.2 on Thursday and quickly began approving apps that take advantage of the health-tracking features the following day. Now, Apple has created this new section in an effort to promote apps that have received their HealthKit updates.

Although there may be more out there – and more are sure to come – Apple has 14 apps listed, and we've compiled them below with links to each.

MyFitnessPal brings its data to iOS 8’s Health app in latest update

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 26, 2014

As Apple earlier this morning began approving HealthKit-powered apps following yesterday's release of the iOS 8.0.2 software update, makers of health and fitness software, life-tracking programs and food intake tracking apps are now releasing updates adding HealthKit compatibility.

Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker, a free of charge iPhone and iPad app by MyFitnessPal, has been bumped to version 5.6.6, for example.

Taking advantage of Apple’s HealthKit in iOS 8 which makes it easy for supported health and fitness apps to work together and share data through the stock Health app, the refreshed MyFitnessPal app now lets you add your meal summaries and sync your weight with HealthKit, as well as add excercices from other HealthKit-enabled apps to your diary.