Don't get me wrong, the overall presentation of iOS 8 went well and it looks to be a step in the right direction. I just couldn't help be reminded of the announcement of Siri and "Touch ID" as features that were cool but that no one had asked for or really needed, and amidst the extreme disappointment in the absence of much more highly anticipated and requested features seemed pretty useless and a waste of engineering effort.
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iPhone Is it just me or does "HealthKit" seem like another unnecessary gimmicky feature?
- Thread starter TH55
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It depends on personal point of views. From my perspective, it's a much wanted feature. I have diabetes, so I do not see it as useless. The ability to quickly see blood sugars, all my meds and dosages, in one place is a super feature. Add to that, the ability of an emergency professional to quickly access that info from my lock screen, if I'm incapacitated, might be a life saving feature. Not all features are for everyone.
I think you're right about one thing, consumers don't know what they want out of tech until someone shows the way. Healthkit may not be wildfire for average consumers, but pairing with the medical field to give the system a long needed boot in the ass to join us in the 21st century is going to set off very interesting developments.
Currently I don't see a whole lot of use for this feature as it just incorporates data from other apps and it's likely that nobody actually uses enough apps to fill up more than 1 or 2 categories(or has the hardware to do so). However if a rumored iwatch comes out it will probably keep track of all the categories and it will become a much more appealing feature.
As it currently stands, does it pull information from any apps? Not a criticism just want to see if I can see an example.
The emergency contacts feature and the fact that it can display allergies are clearly very useful features for a lot of people.
I have a Penicillin allergy.
I have a Penicillin allergy.
While I agree with this completely, as well as HealthKit having the ability to keep record of any health records that may be required at any time (e.g., child's immunization records, allergies, etc.), the big concern I see this having is storage of this information, relative to HIPAA.
Where is the information going to be stored? the mac? the iPhone/iPad? iCloud? If so, Apple may have put themselves in the same position as any insurance company, making them bound by HIPAA. I don't think many people take into account what happens when such a data breach occurs with healthcare records, and how much damage that can cause. Having worked for a state's Medicaid program where a breach did occur, millions (yes, millions) of letters had to go out disclosing the breach, what was taken, etc., and what actions have been taken to mitigate it.
I hope Apple, and everyone who uses HealthKit (myself included) take that into account when they start to put in their data, because the violations of it are serious.
BL.