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Jawbone has launched its new Up app for the iPhone, which utilizes Apple's Health app and HealthKit to track and deliver advice based on a user's diet and physical activity. Not to be confused with Jawbone's other Up app, this newest app does not require the company's fitness tracker and works with over a hundred apps and devices, including MyFitnessPal, Strava Running and Cycling, IFTTT, and more.

jawboneup2014-800x462.jpg
Information from meals logged throughout the day can be used to help generate nutritional advice, while data from workouts can be used to help set goals for the future. The Up app also allows users to log their sleep, which can be analyzed and used to provide advice on future sleep adjustments. All of the advice generated is powered by Jawbone's Insight Engine, which works with both recorded data and data from the Internet to deliver information on a variety of fitness-related subjects.

The app also includes a number of social functions, including the ability to add friends to a "team" to compare and track fitness scores and goals. Users can also set their own goals within a team and receive notifications when progress is being made. Insights generated by the Up app can also be shared through email, message, Facebook, and Twitter.

Up by Jawbone is a free app for the iPhone and can be downloaded in the App Store. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Jawbone Launches HealthKit-Enabled 'Up' App Featuring Personalized Fitness Advice
 

NightFox

macrumors 68040
May 10, 2005
3,233
4,452
Shropshire, UK
I'm not totally clear of Jawbone's intentions here, and hopefully a HealthKit-enabled update of their other UP app (for use with their fitness tracker) will prove me wrong, but this seems to set a worrying precedent for third party apps just leaching data out of Health without sharing their own back in a bid to be the only "all your health data in one place" app. Take a look here and see if you agree: https://jawbone.com/blog/up-opens-up/

I want Health to be my health/fitness data aggregator, I want all my other H&F apps (Nike, Up, Withings) to share their data with it, not just leach it out. If these third party apps aren't going to play ball, then Health will be pretty useless and HealthKit itself will be no improvement on the arbitrary data sharing that exists between different 3rd party apps at the moment.

Not only that, but there's the privacy issue. I'm reasonably happy to have all my data stored in Health as I trust Apple (YMMV), but have you seen the privacy policies of some of these other companies - Jawbone's for example? Many policies allow them to share (i.e. sell) your data to other parties so there's a great incentive for them to force you into using their app as your data aggregator by not sharing its native data through HealthKit. As far as I can see from their T&Cs, once you allow Up to leach your medical information via HealthKit, you allow Jawbone to do what it wants with that information.

Health/HealthKit is only going to work if every app shares its native data back to Health. After all, it's my data, let me decide which apps have access to it!
 
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richxps

macrumors 68000
Jun 9, 2008
1,910
376
I agree with this, I'm also waiting for Nike to update the Nike fuel app to work with health. I'm surprised it's taking this long .
 

BadMelonFarmer

macrumors 6502a
Dec 17, 2010
522
341
North Somerset
I'm not totally clear of Jawbone's intentions here, and hopefully a HealthKit-enabled update of their other UP app (for use with their fitness tracker) will prove me wrong, but this seems to set a worrying precedent for third party apps just leaching data out of Health without sharing their own back in a bid to be the only "all your health data in one place" app. Take a look here and see if you agree: https://jawbone.com/blog/up-opens-up/

I want Health to be my health/fitness data aggregator, I want all my other H&F apps (Nike, Up, Withings) to share their data with it, not just leach it out. If these third party apps aren't going to play ball, then Health will be pretty useless and HealthKit itself will be no improvement on the arbitrary data sharing that exists between different 3rd party apps at the moment.

Not only that, but there's the privacy issue. I'm reasonably happy to have all my data stored in Health as I trust Apple (YMMV), but have you seen the privacy policies of some of these other companies - Jawbone's for example? Many policies allow them to share (i.e. sell) your data to other parties so there's a great incentive for them to force you into using their app as your data aggregator by not sharing its native data through HealthKit. As far as I can see from their T&Cs, once you allow Up to leach your medical information via HealthKit, you allow Jawbone to do what it wants with that information.

Health/HealthKit is only going to work if every app shares its native data back to Health. After all, it's my data, let me decide which apps have access to it!

TOTALLY Agree with you on this.

When I saw it had been updated, i was excited to try the integration ... but alas, there are two separate apps for different devices... so you have to choose the device as either the phone, for Health app integration OR the UP with NO Health app integration using the legacy app.

Very odd.

I guess it was the easiest way to be an early launch pioneer / box ticker.

Hopefully the proper integration will come.
 

Kyze

macrumors newbie
Jan 26, 2014
28
10
TOTALLY Agree with you on this.

When I saw it had been updated, i was excited to try the integration ... but alas, there are two separate apps for different devices... so you have to choose the device as either the phone, for Health app integration OR the UP with NO Health app integration using the legacy app.

Very odd.

I guess it was the easiest way to be an early launch pioneer / box ticker.

Hopefully the proper integration will come.

I agree completely with both of you. Jawbone has said on Twitter that the current UP app, the one that uses the bracelet, will "soon" be updated with HealthKit support. Even so, if the update makes the app import from Health but not export to Health, it will be pretty useless to me. I will consider ditching Jawbone and buying another tracking device if they don't sort this thing out and play nice with HealthKit in an useful way.
 

jeffu

macrumors member
Nov 29, 2006
74
37
I agree completely with both of you. Jawbone has said on Twitter that the current UP app, the one that uses the bracelet, will "soon" be updated with HealthKit support. Even so, if the update makes the app import from Health but not export to Health, it will be pretty useless to me. I will consider ditching Jawbone and buying another tracking device if they don't sort this thing out and play nice with HealthKit in an useful way.

Completely agree with the comments - I want my data to go IN to Heath-Kit - not OUT of Health-Kit.

I have the 6 Plus and it's way to big to carry around ALL the time, so I want to be able to feed my data from my wearable in to the Health-Kit. It's nice that the phones now track your fitness data, but a phone isn't a wearable and won't be with you all the time and likely won't be that accurate. For instance, if I use a treadmill and set the phone on the display to watch video, it's not going to pick up my steps or running.
 

OldSchoolMacGuy

Suspended
Jul 10, 2008
4,197
9,050
Health/HealthKit is only going to work if every app shares its native data back to Health. After all, it's my data, let me decide which apps have access to it!

I agree with your insight. The reason you won't see many companies looking to feed their own data IN to HealthKit is because there is little benefit for them in doing so. Their benefit is pulling data from it. Most will see little benefit from feeding it back in as they get nothing out of it.
 

JUiCEJamie

macrumors 6502a
Mar 22, 2011
817
223
Looks as though the Health section and HealthKit related apps are US only?

Not available here in the UK, anyone else?
 

NightFox

macrumors 68040
May 10, 2005
3,233
4,452
Shropshire, UK
I agree with your insight. The reason you won't see many companies looking to feed their own data IN to HealthKit is because there is little benefit for them in doing so. Their benefit is pulling data from it. Most will see little benefit from feeding it back in as they get nothing out of it.

True, but several other third parties already provide APIs to allow access to their data even though, as you say, there's no direct benefit from them in doing so. Maybe they're just more geared to providing what their customers actually want.

----------

Looks as though the Health section and HealthKit related apps are US only?

Not available here in the UK, anyone else?

Go into the iTunes App Store on your Mac/PC, scroll down to the bottom flag icon and change your store to the US. You should then be able to find the apps as detailed above, and as long as they are actually available in the UK store you should still be able to download them.
 

igorsky

Suspended
Mar 9, 2011
592
650
Brooklyn, NY
I agree with your insight. The reason you won't see many companies looking to feed their own data IN to HealthKit is because there is little benefit for them in doing so. Their benefit is pulling data from it. Most will see little benefit from feeding it back in as they get nothing out of it.

I use the Jawbone UP24 and would love to feed my data into Health, as I'm sure many Jawbone users would. If this doesn't happen then I'll look to switch to a tracker that does. So I'd say, yeah, Jawbone has something to gain from feeding their data.
 

roland.g

macrumors 604
Apr 11, 2005
7,407
3,126
I echo the sentiments here. I saw this and was excited at the idea of wearing my UP band again, primarily for sleep tracking and a silent alarm. But of course for the reason of dumping the data into Health.

That's the idea, it's the repository and the devices are the collectors.

However that said, I will say that I'm not a big fan of the huge blocks in the dashboard. I think the spatial layout could be better. You could have weight on the end with current, + or - underneath it for recent trend and a weekly goal all in a vertical bar and shrink the large rectangles just a bit. I feel it is wasting space.

Likewise, why is there no Health widget in the Today notifications view showing items like steps, stairs, etc at a glance. Seems like any focus on this information should include a quick view aside from launching the app.
 

ob81

macrumors 65816
Jun 11, 2007
1,406
356
Virginia Beach
I guess I understand why apple allowed others to create apps that mimicked Health, but I am not sure if I really want several apps doing this, and blocking their info from the Apple app.

I don't use the UP, and I definitely wouldn't use it if it doesn't share its info.
 

NightFox

macrumors 68040
May 10, 2005
3,233
4,452
Shropshire, UK

zaneliu

macrumors 6502
Jan 27, 2013
360
162
Berkeley
Honestly, I'm expecting a receive and push because there's no point for Up users to have a receive only app. We already have more data than Apple collects with their M series.

It's another reason why I'm delaying on purchasing the Apple Watch because I'm waiting on it having at least on par capabilities as my Up. I use my sleep tracker A LOT and the smart alarm is amazing. So no to that means no to Apple Watch.
 

fadetowhite

macrumors newbie
Apr 15, 2004
8
1
NS, Canada
I bought an UP24 a couple of months ago, and I really like it. The app is quite good. The only thing it lacks now that iOS 8 has been released is Health integration. Which I was really looking forward to, as there are a few other health-related apps I use, and I wanted to see them all working together in Health.

But instead of updating the app that is used by their paying customers, Jawbone has created a new app that doesn’t require their hardware and is free. Now, I’m glad people are getting this nicely-designed app for free and I hope lots of people use it. But I really don’t like how they’ve treated their current customers by not allowing them to take advantage of the Health app as well.
 

jarofclay73

macrumors 6502
Nov 15, 2008
251
3
Honolulu, Hawaii
I deleted the purple UP app because it's apparently not feeding anything into the Health app. When I deleted it, it says there's data connected with the Health app. I kept that data, but I don't know where the hell the data is.

From what I'm reading, I don't really need the purple app because I already have the blue app and that pairs with my UP24.

----------

Also, if you have an iPhone 5S, 6 or 6 Plus, shouldn't the Health app be tracking your steps as well? Or it only for 3rd-party apps?
 

jalm1

macrumors member
Oct 25, 2008
39
2
Looks like the Apple Health enabled UP app for those of us with the UP band (blue app) just hit the store. I updated, it looks like you have to go digging into the app to share data within settings (no prompt to enable this new feature).
 

D.T.

macrumors G4
Sep 15, 2011
11,050
12,460
Vilano Beach, FL
Health/HealthKit is only going to work if every app shares its native data back to Health. After all, it's my data, let me decide which apps have access to it!


I just installed the UP! update, and when you go to the Health setting, there’s a separate toggle to Read Data from Health and Write Data to Health, so it looks like you can read data into the UP! app to refine their analytics, but more importantly, send data to the centralized Health App, where the Up Band can contribute its data (and other apps will do the same, creating an aggregate health summary of activity, food, etc.)

I only looked at it for about 2 minutes so I don’t have many details yet, but pretty stoked, I had hoped (and assumed), Jawbone would add Health integration to the UP! products.
 

jalm1

macrumors member
Oct 25, 2008
39
2
One disappointment: it looks like only steps and sleep analysis will be shared. No Walking + running distance, active calories, resting calories, or any food items.
 

OldSchoolMacGuy

Suspended
Jul 10, 2008
4,197
9,050
Looks like the Apple Health enabled UP app for those of us with the UP band (blue app) just hit the store. I updated, it looks like you have to go digging into the app to share data within settings (no prompt to enable this new feature).

Interesting.
 

0098386

Suspended
Jan 18, 2005
21,574
2,908
Regarding the calories/food part of these apps and bands... how does it work exactly? Do you have to manually enter how many calories each component to a meal has and total it all up?

I just can't see how it works easily... but it must do because people use these apps!
 

zaneliu

macrumors 6502
Jan 27, 2013
360
162
Berkeley
I just installed the UP! update, and when you go to the Health setting, there’s a separate toggle to Read Data from Health and Write Data to Health, so it looks like you can read data into the UP! app to refine their analytics, but more importantly, send data to the centralized Health App, where the Up Band can contribute its data (and other apps will do the same, creating an aggregate health summary of activity, food, etc.)

I only looked at it for about 2 minutes so I don’t have many details yet, but pretty stoked, I had hoped (and assumed), Jawbone would add Health integration to the UP! products.

It doesn't work for me. I turned it on and it hasn't shared any data to Health.
 

D.T.

macrumors G4
Sep 15, 2011
11,050
12,460
Vilano Beach, FL
It doesn't work for me. I turned it on and it hasn't shared any data to Health.

OK, yeah, same here. I’ve got all the proper shares flipped on - from the UP and Health sides, share both ways enabled, etc. I’ve cold started the phone, the apps.

For an experience I added some Steps manually into Health, and those did in fact share back the other way. Saw the manually added Steps in UP.

Maybe it only shares when it Syncs? My band has been sitting here, so I’ll wear it around for a few, sync up, and see if that pushes into Health (I’d hope they would provide an after-the-fact for all the historical data).
 
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