4 ms·

Apple promised an expansive health app, so why can't women track menstruation?

32 points by calvin_c 12y ago

classicsnoot 12y ago
HN's inability to handle the OP is adorable. Using all of the same logic from the article, why is there no Poop Tracker? In fact, not only is it the most diverse, easiest to understand health indicator from the human body, but it is the same for all humans. It is The diagnostic report on literally everything you do. The period tracker is a no brainer, but a poop tracker might actually make your life better. I think, though, that most people want a flashy looking chart and a conversational set piece. Health Care is treated more like an insurance policy and lesss like an habitual practice.
- hiokle 12y ago
  Most people aren't likely to shit themselves without a poop tracker, but most women keep track of their periods to keep from ending up with blood on their pants. Out of all this obnoxious quantified self stuff, this is the only thing I would actually use.
  - classicsnoot 12y ago
    you miss the point; tracking your shit is not a way to avoid public embarrassment or hours in a sink [lads get blood on our clothes to, though some not as frequently as others]. tracking digestive data [doota?log log?] is a way to avoid the doctor's office and the emergency room, make informed decisions about diet on a progressive, as opposed to resolution, basis. Hunters, medical forensic researchers, detectives, your mom; all of these professionals know that poop is a massive data dump of valuable info.
- awendt 12y ago
  OMG, are you serious? Ok, let's play a game then: Here's a group of 100 people. Your assignment: 1. Find 10 women who already track their cycle because it's important to them. 2. Find 10 people who already track their poop because it's important to them. You'll probably need to ask about 10 women to finish assignment #1, maybe 12. You'll never be able to finish assignment #2.
  - classicsnoot 12y ago
    ...hence the need for the tracker. I get the utility aspect for ladies. i agree that this is a rather big and silly oversight by Apple. This being understood, digestive health is in a very poor place in my country ['murka] and if people watched their shit and urine color, they would lead fuller, more productive lives. So, yes, i'm serious. EDIT 01 To your point, most women who want to track do; i feel fairly confident in saying that most people don't even know you can track health through feces, much less how. An index of colors, textures, warning signs, and the ever popular blaaaaaack pooooo caused by peptobismol. stories from sufferers of IBS, Chron's, Cancer. There is a universe in our guts, and a pantheon of actors, good and bad, vying for control of the reaches of the lands of greater and lesser Colon. Dramatic? Maybe, but i think you might be surprised how much tracking your temple's output with the same fervor that many apply to their input, your health [==life] will be better.
serve_yay 12y ago
Is Apple the only one who makes a health app that doesn't do this?
nocgzh 12y ago
do engineers at Apple know what menstruation is?
- zyan 12y ago
  No
fataliss 12y ago
I guess the answer is pretty simple, they didn't want to have a slice of the app that would be irrelevant for half of their customers. Of course most people won't use the dozen features of the app anyway, but they could/might regardless of their sex/age/race/ etc. Introducing a sex specific feature makes a distinction. Maybe they could have done it so you'd chose for the male or female version of the health app or something like that, not saying that doing it well was impossible but it would require focus and dedication for this particular problem. Maybe we will see it coming in the future, who knows? But it was certainly not their focus at the release!
- zyan 12y ago
  Lack of the ability to track menstruation IS a sex-specific feature. Apple has made their app irrelevant for half of their customers but not including it.
- sequoia 12y ago
  "...irrelevant for half of their customers..." To clarify: this is the same Apple that put a U2 album on everyone's iPhone? Tell me again about how they don't want to include something that's irrelevant for half their customers.
  - awendt 12y ago
    Yes, this. Excellent point. Also: This is the same Apple that put the Stocks app on everyone's iPhone.
    - fataliss 12y ago
      I think you are missing the point here. The health app itself won't get interest from 100% of their iPhone users either. I'm assuming they simply didn't want to introduce a gender specific function in their app that would fragment more the users of that app. If you take the number of iPhone owners, who would have an interest in the Health app and then you cut again to get only the women who would be interested in tracking their periods inside their phone, I think you look at a fraction of their users. Not that those users would be any less valuable or anything but they probably didn't represent a demographic big enough to justify a dedicated feature. Especially since they would probably still use the app anyway for all the other features it proposes.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
cmdrfred 12y ago
What are you talking about this his been a feature on most phones since day one. I think they call it "calendar". Also it's sexist to assume only women want to track menstruation isn't it?
- collyw 12y ago
  I saw a web app aimed at guys for tracking menstruation a few years ago (before mobile was popular). The site implied that it would help guys know when their partner was mood was likely to change. The site's comments section was full of very angry women, hating on the sites creators and any men that might want to track their partners cycle.
michaelsbradley 12y ago
The app could also be very helpful as an NFP-related tracker, e.g. per the Billings Ovulation Method: http://www.thebillingsovulationmethod.org http://www.thebillingsovulationmethod.org
espadrine 12y ago
While I (just like the vast majority of readers of this comment) am not menstruating myself, the small sample of my three sisters (and, as it were, many of their friends) seem to indicate that yes, tracking that information is more relevant to half of the human population than any other health metric is for men. If the question is "Why is there no menstruation tracker", the answer (really, the elephant in the room) is somewhere here: http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/ http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/. Of course, the unreleased data about gender diversity amongst Apple engineers, which we will hopefully get within two years by emulation thanks to Google's own interest in the problem, can easily be guessed as well.

32 points by calvin_c 12y ago

HN's inability to handle the OP is adorable. Using all of the same logic from the article, why is there no Poop Tracker? In fact, not only is it the most diverse, easiest to understand health indicator from the human body, but it is the same for all humans. It is The diagnostic report on literally everything you do. The period tracker is a no brainer, but a poop tracker might actually make your life better. I think, though, that most people want a flashy looking chart and a conversational set piece. Health Care is treated more like an insurance policy and lesss like an habitual practice.

hiokle 12y ago
Most people aren't likely to shit themselves without a poop tracker, but most women keep track of their periods to keep from ending up with blood on their pants. Out of all this obnoxious quantified self stuff, this is the only thing I would actually use.
- classicsnoot 12y ago
  you miss the point; tracking your shit is not a way to avoid public embarrassment or hours in a sink [lads get blood on our clothes to, though some not as frequently as others]. tracking digestive data [doota?log log?] is a way to avoid the doctor's office and the emergency room, make informed decisions about diet on a progressive, as opposed to resolution, basis. Hunters, medical forensic researchers, detectives, your mom; all of these professionals know that poop is a massive data dump of valuable info.
awendt 12y ago
OMG, are you serious? Ok, let's play a game then: Here's a group of 100 people. Your assignment: 1. Find 10 women who already track their cycle because it's important to them. 2. Find 10 people who already track their poop because it's important to them. You'll probably need to ask about 10 women to finish assignment #1, maybe 12. You'll never be able to finish assignment #2.
- classicsnoot 12y ago
  ...hence the need for the tracker. I get the utility aspect for ladies. i agree that this is a rather big and silly oversight by Apple. This being understood, digestive health is in a very poor place in my country ['murka] and if people watched their shit and urine color, they would lead fuller, more productive lives. So, yes, i'm serious. EDIT 01 To your point, most women who want to track do; i feel fairly confident in saying that most people don't even know you can track health through feces, much less how. An index of colors, textures, warning signs, and the ever popular blaaaaaack pooooo caused by peptobismol. stories from sufferers of IBS, Chron's, Cancer. There is a universe in our guts, and a pantheon of actors, good and bad, vying for control of the reaches of the lands of greater and lesser Colon. Dramatic? Maybe, but i think you might be surprised how much tracking your temple's output with the same fervor that many apply to their input, your health [==life] will be better.

serve_yay 12y ago

Is Apple the only one who makes a health app that doesn't do this?

nocgzh 12y ago

do engineers at Apple know what menstruation is?

zyan 12y ago
No

fataliss 12y ago

I guess the answer is pretty simple, they didn't want to have a slice of the app that would be irrelevant for half of their customers. Of course most people won't use the dozen features of the app anyway, but they could/might regardless of their sex/age/race/ etc. Introducing a sex specific feature makes a distinction. Maybe they could have done it so you'd chose for the male or female version of the health app or something like that, not saying that doing it well was impossible but it would require focus and dedication for this particular problem. Maybe we will see it coming in the future, who knows? But it was certainly not their focus at the release!

zyan 12y ago
Lack of the ability to track menstruation IS a sex-specific feature. Apple has made their app irrelevant for half of their customers but not including it.
sequoia 12y ago
"...irrelevant for half of their customers..." To clarify: this is the same Apple that put a U2 album on everyone's iPhone? Tell me again about how they don't want to include something that's irrelevant for half their customers.
- awendt 12y ago
  Yes, this. Excellent point. Also: This is the same Apple that put the Stocks app on everyone's iPhone.
  - fataliss 12y ago
    I think you are missing the point here. The health app itself won't get interest from 100% of their iPhone users either. I'm assuming they simply didn't want to introduce a gender specific function in their app that would fragment more the users of that app. If you take the number of iPhone owners, who would have an interest in the Health app and then you cut again to get only the women who would be interested in tracking their periods inside their phone, I think you look at a fraction of their users. Not that those users would be any less valuable or anything but they probably didn't represent a demographic big enough to justify a dedicated feature. Especially since they would probably still use the app anyway for all the other features it proposes.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

cmdrfred 12y ago

What are you talking about this his been a feature on most phones since day one. I think they call it "calendar". Also it's sexist to assume only women want to track menstruation isn't it?

collyw 12y ago
I saw a web app aimed at guys for tracking menstruation a few years ago (before mobile was popular). The site implied that it would help guys know when their partner was mood was likely to change. The site's comments section was full of very angry women, hating on the sites creators and any men that might want to track their partners cycle.

michaelsbradley 12y ago

The app could also be very helpful as an NFP-related tracker, e.g. per the Billings Ovulation Method: http://www.thebillingsovulationmethod.org http://www.thebillingsovulationmethod.org

espadrine 12y ago

While I (just like the vast majority of readers of this comment) am not menstruating myself, the small sample of my three sisters (and, as it were, many of their friends) seem to indicate that yes, tracking that information is more relevant to half of the human population than any other health metric is for men. If the question is "Why is there no menstruation tracker", the answer (really, the elephant in the room) is somewhere here: http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/ http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/. Of course, the unreleased data about gender diversity amongst Apple engineers, which we will hopefully get within two years by emulation thanks to Google's own interest in the problem, can easily be guessed as well.