HealthKit - page 2

Android Wear made the leap to iOS yesterday, meaning that iPhone owners can now buy and use Android Wear smartwatches should they feel so inclined.

One thing they can’t do, however, is to use Apple’s HealthKit platform to monitor their Android Wear fitness data. According to Apple, data such as step count and heart rate can only be tracked via the Google Fit dashboard — meaning that health-conscious users will want to hang onto their Apple Watches.

And somewhat surprisingly, the decision was entirely Google’s.

Apple’s approach to fitness is all about cardio and burning calories.

That’s great if you’re into running or cycling. But for other kinds of exercise, like bodybuilding or yoga, it’s not relevant at all. And if you want to lose weight, cutting the calories you eat is usually more important than burning calories through exercise.

So why does Apple Watch focus exclusively on cardio, and what does this means for people using one to get in shape?

Apple’s ambitions as a mobile health company took a giant leap forward over the weekend, as HealthKit was connected to more than 80,000 patient files at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

This means that Cedars-Sinai doctors now have the ability to take iOS Health data into account when making clinical and medical judgments — allowing physicians to easily access patients’  weight, blood pressure, steps taken, glucose levels, and oxygen saturation levels as gathered from their iOS devices.

While most of us focus on the consumer, education or enterprise applications of Apple’s devices, there’s another huge market where Cupertino’s products are making waves: the medical profession.

According to a new report from Reuters, 14 out of the United States’ top 23 hospitals have already rolled out a pilot program for Apple’s HealthKit service, which acts as a one-stop shop for compiling everything from blood pressure information to heart rates.

Fresh off his deep dive into CES, Alex takes on home automation and how HomeKit may just change everything, making the dream of an easy, ubiquitous home future a reality. Rob takes a look at a new game that turns your Apple TV into a motion-controlled gaming console, Buster shows us how the Apple Watch has already won the war for your wrist, Luke builds his own fun with a shoebox full of maker-kit for kid-friendly iPad gadgets, and Lewis spends a little time in Microsoft’s holographic future.

We’ve got all this and more in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, so make sure to subscribe and download your copy today.

Ever since Tim Cook unveiled the Apple Watch last September, it’s been one disappointment after another as far as I’m concerned. Apple’s first wearable won’t come in the minimalist form factor of the fitness bracelets I love. Worse yet, the launch version of the fashion-forward device will lack GPS, suffer from underwhelming battery life and fail to offer truly native third-party apps.

For the first time, I realized I would not be buying an Apple product when it first hit the market. “It’s not worth lining up for,” I told my dad when he asked what I thought after the Apple Watch’s big reveal.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Apple Watch’s launch day, which is coming sometime this spring. And I’m not talking about the previously unthinkable — an Apple fan calling the Microsoft Band the best smartwatch on the planet. No, I’m talking about wading through an ungodly sea of really bad smartwatches at International CES earlier this month and seeing indisputable proof of just how innovative and disruptive Apple Watch actually will be.

LAS VEGAS — Monitoring diabetes can be a pain (literally). Keeping track of your loved one’s diabetes is even harder, especially if you’re trying to ensure your tech-illiterate grandmother’s blood-sugar levels aren’t spiking.

Now you’ll finally be able to monitor all their vital stats from your iPhone, even if grandma’s not using one too.

iHealth revealed its new iHealth Gateway collection of devices at International CES here this week. The line of products allow loved ones or doctors to remotely monitor personal health stats for senior citizens who eschew iOS devices. All grandma and grandpa have to do is prick their finger with the supported blood-glucose monitor, and the Gateway hub will beam the data to their caretaker’s device. No more worries about whether they’re keeping up with their meds.

LAS VEGAS — I’ve had a standing desk for two years now, and while it’s practically the greatest piece of furniture to ever enter my life, I somehow forget to actually stand at it while working.

HumanScale is all too familiar with lazy people like me using their ergonomic desks without reaping the full benefits, so the company teamed up with Detroit startup Tome to create a standing desk solution called OfficeIQ that syncs with HealthKit to tell you when you’re being too damn lazy.

LAS VEGAS — Taking a urine-analysis test to check your most vital and private health stats usually requires an hour-long visit to the doctor. But in 2015, you’ll be able to pee on a stick and get 12 vital health measurements without having to leave your bathroom.

Scandu, the Silicon Valley-based medtech company behind the tiny Scandu Scout analyzer, has created an at-home urinalysis device called the Scanaflo that bridges the gap between the medical community and consumers.

LAS VEGAS — Who ever thought a blood-pressure monitor could look cool?

Qardio did. The U.S. medical device maker is obsessed with crafting hospital-grade gear that wouldn’t look out of place sitting alongside your iMac.

The company’s latest product, unveiled during the International CES trade show here, is a smart scale that delivers feedback in the form of a smile or a frown, depending on how your weight is trending.

“It makes you feel good,” said Rosario Iannella, Qardio’s chief information officer.

LAS VEGAS — Not every wearable launched this year will get slapped on your wrist.

Quell, a new electrical-stimulation device designed to help alleviate chronic pain, gets wrapped around the wearer’s calf.

“I like to say it’s like a USB port into your central nervous system,” said Frank McGillin, SVP and general manger of Quell.

While a wave of fitness trackers and the upcoming Apple Watch are drumming up a healthy buzz about wearables, more and more medical devices work with smartphone apps and tap into Apple’s HealthKit platform. Quell doesn’t yet work with HealthKit, but McGillin told Cult of Mac that’s certainly in the cards.

LAS VEGAS — I love basketball, but I have a weakness — I can’t jump.

I’ve hit the gym. I’ve tried jumping exercises.

None of it has worked, but a new fitness sensor called VERT might be the first wearable that finally helps me get above the rim, thanks to its workouts, which are designed to help you improve your leaping ability, while also preventing injuries on the court.

The iPhone 6 received rave reviews when Apple unveiled it at the Flint Center last month, but not many people have been eager to talk about it’s shortcomings, until now.

In today’s Cult of Mac video we breakdown the biggest disappointments iPhone 6 users have griped about since the device went on sale two weeks ago. What should Apple improve to make the phone better? Find out what the next generation iPhone still needs and more in this informative video.

Subscribe to Cult of Mac TV to catch all our latest videos.

Facebook is set to follow Apple into the mobile health field according to a new report from Reuters.

Citing three people familiar with the matter, the report states that Facebook has been discussing the move with medical industry experts, and is currently in the early stages of assembling an R&D team for the creation of health-related mobile apps.

Like a person with a new gym membership, Apple’s been on a health kick all year.

First we had the announcement of HealthKit at WWDC, then a fitness-oriented iPhone 5s ad in June, followed by Apple’s entry into the fitness-tracking market with the Apple Watch unveiling, and now the App Store’s been updated with a new “Apps for Health” section.

This section continues Apple’s trend for using human curation in the App Store by highlighting 14 apps which take advantage of iOS 8’s Health app by bringing health and fitness data into one centralized apps for access by users.

Update: iOS 8.0.1 upgraders are reporting problems with Touch ID and cellular connectivity after installing Apple’s update. You should wait before taking the plunge. If you’ve already installed iOS 8.0.1, here’s how to downgrade to iOS 8.

Apple has pulled an iOS 8.0.1 update that fixed problems with HealthKit and various other features after iPhone 6 and 6 Plus users discovered the update broke Touch ID and blocked cellular connectivity.

The iOS 8.0.1 update was also supposed to improve Reachability on the iPhone 6, but it has already been removed while Apple addresses the nest of new bugs it unleashed.

A bug in HealthKit caused Apple to pull several fitness apps from its App Store Wednesday morning, just as the company was rolling out its long-awaited iOS 8 update.

Apple said the problem could keep apps compatible with HealthKit, a key component of iOS 8 that facilitates sharing of data among health and fitness apps and hardware, out of the store for weeks. “We’re working quickly to have the bug fixed in a software update and have HealthKit apps available by the end of the month,” Apple said in a statement to Cult of Mac.

Brian Mueller, developer of Carrot Fit, said Apple called and emailed him to say his fitness app had been removed from the App Store due to a last-minute problem with HealthKit. His app, and several others including My Fitness Pal and WebMD for iPhone, are currently unavailable for download.

“The rep couldn’t clarify what was wrong,” Mueller told Cult of Mac in an email, “though users of the app who had already downloaded the update were able to use the HealthKit features without any issue.”

iOS 8’s HealthKit is already starting to change the way health researchers track patients’ wellness even though it hasn’t been released, as two of the country’s top research hospitals have launched HealthKit trials to track diabetics and patients with cancer and chronic disease.

Doctors at Stanford University Hospital say they’ve been working with Apple to track blood sugar levels for children with diabetes, while Reuters reports that Duke University developed a pilot program that uses HealthKit to track fitness measurements for patients with cancer or heart disease.

Apple is constantly looking to improve the App Store experience, and ahead of the long-awaited release of the iPhone 6 and public version of iOS 8, it is doubling its efforts.

With these two landmark events coming up rapidly, the company has updated its App Store review guidelines to add all-new sections dealing with features such as HealthKit, HomeKit and TestFlight, extensions and more.

Apple may view its mobile health push as a “moral obligation,” but for it to really become the tech leader in this area it’s going to need to ensure that it has user trust on its side.

That may help explain why — ahead of the September 9 event many predict will see the unveiling of the long-awaited iWatch — Apple has taken the opportunity to update its HealthKit privacy policy to ensure that developers keep user data away from advertisers and data brokers.

Apple is nearly ready to become the go-to place for healthcare providers to get all your personal fitness data, and along with meeting with hospitals to talk about the benefits of HealthKit, Apple has been talking to the countries biggest health insurance providers about partnering with its health initiatives.

According to new reports, Apple has been meeting with major health providers to discuss its new HealthKit service, set to debut with iOS 8.

Apple has supposedly meet with healthcare officials at Mount Sinai, the Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins, alongside Allscripts, which is a competitor to major electronic health records provider Epic Systems.

The talks concern how Apple wants to make the health data it plans to help collect (including blood pressure, pulse rate, weight, etc.) available to both consumers and health providers.

Apple hopes that physicians will be able to use this data (provided permission is granted) to monitor patients in between hospital visits, in order to make better decisions concerning diagnostics and treatment.

Design questions aside, the true mystery about Apple’s long-rumored iWatch lies in exactly what types of health-related sensors the wearable might include. A recent report claims the iWatch will sport an astonishing 10 different sensors, including one for sweat.

While pedometers, accelerometers, thermometers and every other o-meter Jony Ive can get his hands on might all make sense for a smartwatch, we’re wondering what Apple could do with a sweat sensor? Other than verify that, yes, your sweat glands are pouring out more fluid per minute than Niagara Falls during your jog?

It turns out that adding sweat sensors would do more than differentiate the iWatch from smartwatches by LG, Motorola and Samsung right out of the gate. It could make the iWatch the most “personal” device you’ve ever shackled yourself to, with surprising applications that go far beyond fitness and health.