7 ms·

How to see your iOS8 health data

65 points by aprilzero 12y ago

revelation 12y ago
I don't get it. None of this has anything do with health. That's fitness/sports/activity data.
- aprilzero 12y ago
  The app is called "Health"
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- coolfilmaker 12y ago
  Pretty sure all of those things play an important role in health.
vpontis 12y ago
I did this and I still don't have any data on my dashboard. Does anyone else have this problem? Do you have to enable the tracking? I am using an iPhone 5 so it might be different...
- Titanous 12y ago
  The iPhone 5 doesn't have the "motion coprocessor" (added in 5S), so it's unlikely that it will gather this data without a third-party app.
  - owenfi 12y ago
    Correct. Also the 5S doesn't have barometer/altimeter so you won't get flights climbed.
    - avalaunch 12y ago
      Which makes you wonder why they even bothered including the app on the iPhone 5. It's got to be the most pointless app on my phone.
      - covercash 12y ago
        3rd party apps and fitness trackers will be able to feed data into the app now that 8.02 is out.
    - MBCook 12y ago
      The flights climbed number for me is off. I'm not surprised at that, FitBit got rid of the feature for the same reason (it's really hard to get right), but I'm a bit surprised that since it's not very accurate it was included at all. When I experimented with my FitBit I had to exaggerate my vertical motion when going up and down stars to get it to register well. It seems I'm too 'smooth' walking up and down stairs to reliably trigger the mechanism.
      - JohnTHaller 12y ago
        Apple is just starting out with these sensors, so they're likely to make the same mistakes that FitBit made a few years ago.
        spydertennis 12y ago
        that's not likely
        JohnTHaller 12y ago
        Sure it is. Users are already getting inaccurate 'floors' measurements and posting the associated bug reports in their forums. If Apple had paid attention to FitBit's featureset over time Apple would have realized the feature was removed because it was uselessly inaccurate. A barometric sensor doesn't become more accurate for tracking flights of stairs climbed just because it's in a device with an Apple logo.
oliv__ 12y ago
Just a note on the website: I had to disable the body's overflow: hidden property to be able to see anything below the fold. On Firefox 32.0.3 (mac)
ceworthington 12y ago
It's pretty damning of the HealthKit product team that a post like this is required. Why would Apple publish the app at all? It seems like they should have released iOS8 with some kind of simple pedometer/stair counting app that looked good and was easy to use, like a reference application to show what HealthKit could be used for, and then buried the HealthKit app as it currently stands in some settings menu that most people will never need to look at. The only thing I can imagine is that they intended to roll out a bunch of HealthKit-compatible apps from third parties like Nike and FitBit along with iOS8, but the bug messed up their release plan.
- notjosh 12y ago
  The best I can tell is that the Health app is more of a hub to see aggregated (raw-ish) data, and set/update permissions on what apps have access to what data. I don't think their intent is to compete with any of the apps out there that use the data though.
  - MBCook 12y ago
    I believe your correct. The iPhone 5s, 6, and 6+ all record the number of steps you take thanks to the M7 motion processor, but that seems to be more of a 'because it's there' thing.
- scoot 12y ago
  > Why would Apple publish the app at all? Because the intention was to have third-party apsp and device integration at launch. But something went wrong, and all the partner apps were pulled if already published, or postponed if not.
- coolfilmaker 12y ago
  It's called HealthKit because it's basically a software development kit. The GUI is clearly more of an afterthought and a way to keep the settings from getting buried in the already packed settings app.
alialkhatib 12y ago
The more I look at these measures, the more I wonder whether Apple has a plan for all of this or if they're just throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks. Some of these seem like there's tie-in (body measurements can be assessed through a Withings scale, sleep can be assessed through a Jawbone UP or similar device, and the "Me" section is mostly static), but does Apple have any plan to get people to track their Molybdenum intake on a regular basis? Or their BAC? Or their body temperature? I'm not saying they need to, but in the past it has seemed like when Apple provided an affordance, they also had a clear use case. If nothing else, you could fully use the device/service in the way they describe, and that would sufficiently justify its adoption for many. With Health, I'm not seeing that. I wonder if this will threaten the overall adoption of Health, which in general seems like not a terrible idea - anything that gets people thinking more about their activity and diet seems like a good thing. One could argue that their solution is to leave it to third party devices and integration. Apple doesn't need to make a scale to help you track your weight (Withings has already done it, as I'm sure others have), nor does it want to touch the quagmire that is nutrition by claiming to measure the nutritional value of any food. Let some food-related startup do that dirty work, as long as Apple provides some interface for the measurement to end up in this data silo. This argument seems weaker to me than the argument seemed when Apple first started accepting apps for the iPhone (later iOS). Health currently leaves huge swaths of its UI barren for lack of data, and I'm not sure that hardware developers can swarm to fill in those gaps the way software developers could with the platform. Maybe I missed the part of their talk where they made it obvious how they envisioned Health (and HealthKit) to be used in a fuller way; if that's the case, I'd appreciate a pointer.
- scoot 12y ago
  What drove this home for me was the inclusion of a separate measure for BMI. I've already given it my height (hopefully static, but apparently deserving of a line graph), and my weight. Yet apparently calculating my BMI from these inputs (admittedly a crude measure of health) is beyond the capability Health app?
  - minikites 12y ago
    BMI is only intended to measure health at a population level, it's too crude to have any useful input on personal health. And height isn't static if you're an adolescent.
nell 12y ago
I think the reason Apple didn't market this to us is iWatch and the lack of third party integration as of now. They might be wanting to show this off as part of iWatch integration or let the third party apps do the marketing.
- MBCook 12y ago
  They were supposed to have tons of 3rd party apps at launch, but they found some sort of (presumedly security) bug in the release build and had to pull/prevent apps from integrating when iOS 8 launched. There was even a feature area on the iOS App Store but it was quickly removed. This was fixed in iOS 8.0.1, but that caused connectivity problems on the 6 and 6+. Now with 8.0.2 things are finally ready, but now the apps aren't out or approved, so things aren't ready yet. Sadly this whole thing has been kind of a mess. I remember reading some 3rd parties scrambled to get an update out for the iPhone 6 and 6+ that disabled the Health functionality since Apple was temporarily rejecting apps due to the bug. I've seen a handful of commercials on TV already. Sadly none of this has gone smoothly. I imagine in the next week or two we'll see the 'real' roll out. Maybe they'll make a big push again when they turn on Apple Pay.
brianbreslin 12y ago
What apps or third party devices out there now already are integrated with this?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- ciniglio 12y ago
  MyFitnessPal just released an update that integrates with Health today.
- aprilzero 12y ago
  A few were just released I think, now that 8.0.2 is out. But no big names that I recognized
kmfrk 12y ago
PSA: If you have any important information to add, enter it in the app, and first responders will be able to see it by going from the "Emergency" screen. Neat if you're allergic to anesthetics.
- Glide 12y ago
  This is going to be the main reason I upgrade my parents' phones to the latest iOS...
- lucaspiller 12y ago
  If you are really allergic to anything like this, please use the tried and tested methods of a medical bracelet or necklace. First responders aren't going to know the device buried deep in your pocket has emergency medical information on it, and it will waste their time checking. (Disclaimer: I used to be a voluntary first responder while I was studying)
  - kmfrk 12y ago
    (Or do both.) :)
usrname 12y ago
Why the ... you hidde scrollbar ? body { background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #171d25; color: #fff; display: none; height: 100%; overflow: hidden; !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! position: relative; }
- hahainternet 12y ago
  Can't even scroll at all without javascript, what a terrible site.
  - aprilzero 12y ago
    yeah, you should probably use javascript
    - aw3c2 12y ago
      For what gain? The post is just some images and text, there is nothing necessarily dynamic.
beggi 12y ago
Where is the health data stored? Is it only locally or on iCloud as well? I updated some data in Health app on my iPhone 5S before I got the new iPhone 6, did a backup and restore when I got it and lost all the data I had entered..
- selectodude 12y ago
  My exercise data came in through iCloud when I restored. Can't speak to anything else though.
coolfilmaker 12y ago
After using a HealthKit enabled exercise app and contemplating the potential benefits from HealthKit enabled gadgets, I am beginning to think the direction that Tim Cook is taking Apple may be superior to the one Jobs would have taken it in. Jobs probably would have made better gadgets, but Tim may end up making a better world. I could definitely see Cook et al. winning the Nobel prize in medicine in 5-10 years if HealthKit catches on.

65 points by aprilzero 12y ago

revelation 12y ago

I don't get it. None of this has anything do with health. That's fitness/sports/activity data.

aprilzero 12y ago
The app is called "Health"
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
coolfilmaker 12y ago
Pretty sure all of those things play an important role in health.

vpontis 12y ago

I did this and I still don't have any data on my dashboard. Does anyone else have this problem? Do you have to enable the tracking? I am using an iPhone 5 so it might be different...

Titanous 12y ago
The iPhone 5 doesn't have the "motion coprocessor" (added in 5S), so it's unlikely that it will gather this data without a third-party app.
- owenfi 12y ago
  Correct. Also the 5S doesn't have barometer/altimeter so you won't get flights climbed.
  - avalaunch 12y ago
    Which makes you wonder why they even bothered including the app on the iPhone 5. It's got to be the most pointless app on my phone.
    - covercash 12y ago
      3rd party apps and fitness trackers will be able to feed data into the app now that 8.02 is out.
  - MBCook 12y ago
    The flights climbed number for me is off. I'm not surprised at that, FitBit got rid of the feature for the same reason (it's really hard to get right), but I'm a bit surprised that since it's not very accurate it was included at all. When I experimented with my FitBit I had to exaggerate my vertical motion when going up and down stars to get it to register well. It seems I'm too 'smooth' walking up and down stairs to reliably trigger the mechanism.
    - JohnTHaller 12y ago
      Apple is just starting out with these sensors, so they're likely to make the same mistakes that FitBit made a few years ago.
      - spydertennis 12y ago
        that's not likely
        JohnTHaller 12y ago
        Sure it is. Users are already getting inaccurate 'floors' measurements and posting the associated bug reports in their forums. If Apple had paid attention to FitBit's featureset over time Apple would have realized the feature was removed because it was uselessly inaccurate. A barometric sensor doesn't become more accurate for tracking flights of stairs climbed just because it's in a device with an Apple logo.

oliv__ 12y ago

Just a note on the website: I had to disable the body's overflow: hidden property to be able to see anything below the fold. On Firefox 32.0.3 (mac)

ceworthington 12y ago

It's pretty damning of the HealthKit product team that a post like this is required. Why would Apple publish the app at all? It seems like they should have released iOS8 with some kind of simple pedometer/stair counting app that looked good and was easy to use, like a reference application to show what HealthKit could be used for, and then buried the HealthKit app as it currently stands in some settings menu that most people will never need to look at. The only thing I can imagine is that they intended to roll out a bunch of HealthKit-compatible apps from third parties like Nike and FitBit along with iOS8, but the bug messed up their release plan.

notjosh 12y ago
The best I can tell is that the Health app is more of a hub to see aggregated (raw-ish) data, and set/update permissions on what apps have access to what data. I don't think their intent is to compete with any of the apps out there that use the data though.
- MBCook 12y ago
  I believe your correct. The iPhone 5s, 6, and 6+ all record the number of steps you take thanks to the M7 motion processor, but that seems to be more of a 'because it's there' thing.
scoot 12y ago
> Why would Apple publish the app at all? Because the intention was to have third-party apsp and device integration at launch. But something went wrong, and all the partner apps were pulled if already published, or postponed if not.
coolfilmaker 12y ago
It's called HealthKit because it's basically a software development kit. The GUI is clearly more of an afterthought and a way to keep the settings from getting buried in the already packed settings app.

alialkhatib 12y ago

The more I look at these measures, the more I wonder whether Apple has a plan for all of this or if they're just throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks. Some of these seem like there's tie-in (body measurements can be assessed through a Withings scale, sleep can be assessed through a Jawbone UP or similar device, and the "Me" section is mostly static), but does Apple have any plan to get people to track their Molybdenum intake on a regular basis? Or their BAC? Or their body temperature? I'm not saying they need to, but in the past it has seemed like when Apple provided an affordance, they also had a clear use case. If nothing else, you could fully use the device/service in the way they describe, and that would sufficiently justify its adoption for many. With Health, I'm not seeing that. I wonder if this will threaten the overall adoption of Health, which in general seems like not a terrible idea - anything that gets people thinking more about their activity and diet seems like a good thing. One could argue that their solution is to leave it to third party devices and integration. Apple doesn't need to make a scale to help you track your weight (Withings has already done it, as I'm sure others have), nor does it want to touch the quagmire that is nutrition by claiming to measure the nutritional value of any food. Let some food-related startup do that dirty work, as long as Apple provides some interface for the measurement to end up in this data silo. This argument seems weaker to me than the argument seemed when Apple first started accepting apps for the iPhone (later iOS). Health currently leaves huge swaths of its UI barren for lack of data, and I'm not sure that hardware developers can swarm to fill in those gaps the way software developers could with the platform. Maybe I missed the part of their talk where they made it obvious how they envisioned Health (and HealthKit) to be used in a fuller way; if that's the case, I'd appreciate a pointer.

scoot 12y ago
What drove this home for me was the inclusion of a separate measure for BMI. I've already given it my height (hopefully static, but apparently deserving of a line graph), and my weight. Yet apparently calculating my BMI from these inputs (admittedly a crude measure of health) is beyond the capability Health app?
- minikites 12y ago
  BMI is only intended to measure health at a population level, it's too crude to have any useful input on personal health. And height isn't static if you're an adolescent.

nell 12y ago

I think the reason Apple didn't market this to us is iWatch and the lack of third party integration as of now. They might be wanting to show this off as part of iWatch integration or let the third party apps do the marketing.

MBCook 12y ago
They were supposed to have tons of 3rd party apps at launch, but they found some sort of (presumedly security) bug in the release build and had to pull/prevent apps from integrating when iOS 8 launched. There was even a feature area on the iOS App Store but it was quickly removed. This was fixed in iOS 8.0.1, but that caused connectivity problems on the 6 and 6+. Now with 8.0.2 things are finally ready, but now the apps aren't out or approved, so things aren't ready yet. Sadly this whole thing has been kind of a mess. I remember reading some 3rd parties scrambled to get an update out for the iPhone 6 and 6+ that disabled the Health functionality since Apple was temporarily rejecting apps due to the bug. I've seen a handful of commercials on TV already. Sadly none of this has gone smoothly. I imagine in the next week or two we'll see the 'real' roll out. Maybe they'll make a big push again when they turn on Apple Pay.

brianbreslin 12y ago

What apps or third party devices out there now already are integrated with this?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ciniglio 12y ago
MyFitnessPal just released an update that integrates with Health today.
aprilzero 12y ago
A few were just released I think, now that 8.0.2 is out. But no big names that I recognized

kmfrk 12y ago

PSA: If you have any important information to add, enter it in the app, and first responders will be able to see it by going from the "Emergency" screen. Neat if you're allergic to anesthetics.

Glide 12y ago
This is going to be the main reason I upgrade my parents' phones to the latest iOS...
lucaspiller 12y ago
If you are really allergic to anything like this, please use the tried and tested methods of a medical bracelet or necklace. First responders aren't going to know the device buried deep in your pocket has emergency medical information on it, and it will waste their time checking. (Disclaimer: I used to be a voluntary first responder while I was studying)
- kmfrk 12y ago
  (Or do both.) :)

usrname 12y ago

Why the ... you hidde scrollbar ? body { background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #171d25; color: #fff; display: none; height: 100%; overflow: hidden; !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! position: relative; }

hahainternet 12y ago
Can't even scroll at all without javascript, what a terrible site.
- aprilzero 12y ago
  yeah, you should probably use javascript
  - aw3c2 12y ago
    For what gain? The post is just some images and text, there is nothing necessarily dynamic.

beggi 12y ago

Where is the health data stored? Is it only locally or on iCloud as well? I updated some data in Health app on my iPhone 5S before I got the new iPhone 6, did a backup and restore when I got it and lost all the data I had entered..

selectodude 12y ago
My exercise data came in through iCloud when I restored. Can't speak to anything else though.

coolfilmaker 12y ago

After using a HealthKit enabled exercise app and contemplating the potential benefits from HealthKit enabled gadgets, I am beginning to think the direction that Tim Cook is taking Apple may be superior to the one Jobs would have taken it in. Jobs probably would have made better gadgets, but Tim may end up making a better world. I could definitely see Cook et al. winning the Nobel prize in medicine in 5-10 years if HealthKit catches on.