Deconstructing Apple’s New HealthKit – It’s iOS8 Preview

Posted on | June 3, 2014 | Comments Off on Deconstructing Apple’s New HealthKit – It’s iOS8 Preview

Mike Magee

This morning I got an e-mail message from educational media design expert, Paul Schwarz. He’s the founder of Symphony Learning in Boston, and the creator of award-winning software for organizations like Harvard Medical School, Lexia Learning Systems and publisher Houghton Mifflin. His message to me, “Only Apple can take a beautiful idea, create a beautiful user interface around it, lock us all into their ecosystem, and then get other developers to build stuff to make their stuff better…It’s an impressive company.”

In case you missed it, Apple caused a stir this week at the 2014 Worldwide Development Conference in San Francisco. Developers had anticipated the announcement of a new Apple Operating System (iOS8) soon to be available in the marketplace. But that’s not what captured everyone’s attention. Rather it was Apple, through it’s App invasion strategy, announcing its intention to stake out both the home and health has fertile grounds for development.

The “Smart Home” move, in part to head off competitor Samsung, will link energy, security and kitchen appliances to achieve and maintain maximum safety and efficiency. More important, such integrated systems provide the framework for capturing human motion, action, intention and detection of variances from normal predictive behaviors.

Not excited yet? Layer on Apple Vice President Craig Federighi’s presentation. You can listen to it HERE, or if you’d rather an animated summary by Sheetal Kartik, press HERE. Working with Mayo Clinic – and a bunch of other top shelf academic medical centers – they’ve created the framework for a new Health app called “HealthKit”, and invited designers to develop new features or integrate existing ones. Federighi says, “It just might be the beginning of a health revolution.”

Now add one more piece, the piece that, when combined with the first two elements, drew a large applause from the WWDC audience. “We have a new programming language. The language is called Swift and it totally rules,” according to Federighi. More important was tech leader, CNET Editor-at-Large Tim Stevens’ review, “As a coder, I can tell ya, Swift looks impressive. Proof in the pudding, grain of salt, etc. etc. But what I just saw looks great.” Added Cambridge, Mass, based Tom Copeman, CEO of artificial intelligence company Nara, “This could involve lighting, hardware, heating, music, entertainment, home security and surveillance…it’s an industry worth $100s of billions.”

Now you may recall that, some time ago, when Google Health went down, I commented, “The problem for Google Health, and arguably for Health Vault as well, has been a lack of basic understanding of modern health, where it is heading, and the role technology must play in its’ transformation. Google felt that ‘information’ = ‘solution’. Mirroring the existing health care system, it reacted rather than proacted, accepting segregation without promoting strategic health planning in a meaningful and comprehensive way.”

Compare this to Apple’s messaging, laid out clearly, directly, and briefly:

“How are you?” now has a really accurate answer.

Heart rate, calories burned, blood sugar, cholesterol — your health and fitness apps are great at collecting all that data. The new Health app puts that data in one place, accessible with a tap, giving you a clear and current overview of your health. You can also create an emergency card with important health information — for example, your blood type or allergies — that’s available right from your Lock screen.

See your whole health picture.

Quickly view your most recent health and fitness data in one dashboard.

Manage what you’re tracking.

See a list of the different types of data being managed by Health, then tap to see each one individually.

Set up every detail.

You have complete control over exactly which data to share with each health and fitness app.

Just in case.

Create an emergency card that’s accessible from your Lock screen.

Your health and ﬁtness apps will soon work even harder for you.

With HealthKit, developers can make their apps even more useful by allowing them to access your health data, too. And you choose what you want shared. For example, you can allow the data from your blood pressure app to be automatically shared with your doctor. Or allow your nutrition app to tell your fitness apps how many calories you consume each day. When your health and fitness apps work together, they become more powerful. And you might, too.

In 2007, I defined the concept “Techmanity”, technology that humanizes relationships. Will Apple finally deliver on the promise of this futuristic vision? Time will tell. What can be said now is that connecting home and health, assisted by a remarkably beautiful device and app, and enabled by a new approach to coding that is far faster and more efficient in energy consumption, suggests that health consumers and health providers may soon find themselves on the same page – and device.

For Health Commentary, I’m Mike Magee