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Where is activity data held?

virginblue4

virginblue4

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 15, 2012
2,036
727
United Kingdom
Hi everyone,

I have an Apple Watch that is paired to my iPhone 6s. I sold my iPhone 6s today and am using an iPhone 5 until I get an iPhone 7 Plus.

I wiped my iPhone without unpairing my watch first (I completely forgot!) however I back up my phone to iCloud each night. This meant I had to erase my watch directly on the watch itself rather than unpairing first.

I have set the iPhone 5 up as new however I plan to set up the iPhone 7 Plus up from the backup of my iPhone 6s.

Will all my activity data be stored on the backup of my iPhone 6s, so once I set my iPhone 7 Plus up it will all still be there? Or will I have lost it?
 
It is on the iPhone. If you setup the 7 from your 6S backup you will only have data up until that backup.
 
virginblue4 said:
I have an Apple Watch that is paired to my iPhone 6s. I sold my iPhone 6s today and am using an iPhone 5 until I get an iPhone 7 Plus.

I wiped my iPhone without unpairing my watch first (I completely forgot!) however I back up my phone to iCloud each night. This meant I had to erase my watch directly on the watch itself rather than unpairing first.

I have set the iPhone 5 up as new however I plan to set up the iPhone 7 Plus up from the backup of my iPhone 6s.

Will all my activity data be stored on the backup of my iPhone 6s, so once I set my iPhone 7 Plus up it will all still be there? Or will I have lost it?
Click to expand...
This is a softball into one of the areas that I think is a mega Apple fail. The Activity data are store in a blend between the Activity and Health apps on the phone. The only way to maintain your prior state is a restore from either an iCloud backup or an encrypted iTunes backup. If you setup as a new device, you lose it all. When you restore from your backup, it will go back to whenever your last backup happened.

Every other product in the universe of activity and fitness tracking stores these data on the cloud. Apple is the sole device-centric model. It is as if they hired Palm Pilot developers who were cryogenically frozen for 20 years.
 
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exxxviii said:
This is a softball into one of the areas that I think is a mega Apple fail. The Activity data are store in a blend between the Activity and Health apps on the phone. The only way to maintain your prior state is a restore from either an iCloud backup or an encrypted iTunes backup. If you setup as a new device, you lose it all. When you restore from your backup, it will go back to whenever your last backup happened.

Every other product in the universe of activity and fitness tracking stores these data on the cloud. Apple is the sole device-centric model. It is as if they hired Palm Pilot developers who were cryogenically frozen for 20 years.
Click to expand...
I think it's for privacy reasons; health data is especially sensitive. That being said, I too would like an official way to restore health and activity data without having to restore everything else.
 
HopefulHumanist said:
I think it's for privacy reasons; health data is especially sensitive.
Click to expand...
That is Apple's marketing cop out. All health data are already on the cloud. Apple would be one of the few, if possibly only, health data app developer that isolates data to a specific device. The entire rest of the health data universe is safely on the cloud.
 
exxxviii said:
That is Apple's marketing cop out. All health data are already on the cloud. Apple would be one of the few, if possibly only, health data app developer that isolates data to a specific device. The entire rest of the health data universe is safely on the cloud.
Click to expand...
Just because other companies put health data in the cloud doesn't make it safe... Everyone thinks they're safe until they get breached. I'm not saying it's impossible to store it safely in the cloud but I think you're being naive to be this dismissive of the real concerns in play here.
 
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Julien said:
It is on the iPhone. If you setup the 7 from your 6S backup you will only have data up until that backup.
Click to expand...

That's what I was hoping to hear. I'm not worried about not keeping the activity data that happens while using the iPhone 5 I'm currently using, I just didn't want to lose all my previous data.

Once the iPhone 7+ arrives I'll restore from an iCloud backup of the iPhone 6s.

Thanks again.
 
HopefulHumanist said:
Just because other companies put health data in the cloud doesn't make it safe... Everyone thinks they're safe until they get breached. I'm not saying it's impossible to store it safely in the cloud but I think you're being naive to be this dismissive of the real concerns in play here.
Click to expand...
No, my point is that almost everyone's personal health data are already on the cloud. They have been for years. The rest of the computing world has figured this out. No technology is perfectly safe. Apple's approach does not make your data any more safe, just less accessible and less useful.
 
exxxviii said:
Apple's approach does not make your data any more safe, just less accessible and less useful.
Click to expand...

What an ignorant thing to say. Apple approach make the data more safe. That's the whole point they do the way they're doing. Just because someone doesn't care about security as much doesn't mean its products just as safe. Looks at Dropbox for example. They were safe for years too.
 
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exxxviii said:
No, my point is that almost everyone's personal health data are already on the cloud. They have been for years. The rest of the computing world has figured this out. No technology is perfectly safe. Apple's approach does not make your data any more safe, just less accessible and less useful.
Click to expand...
Keep in mind Apple Health can also include medical data and medical data must comply to strict HIPPA standards.
 
matrix07 said:
What an ignorant thing to say. Apple approach make the data more safe. That's the whole point they do the way they're doing.
Click to expand...
Not ignorant at all. Apple's approach is safest for Apple. They can confidently state that there is very low probability that Apple can have a broad data breach. This sounds good in marketing too. But, it makes the data less useful and less accessible. I wish Apple had never created Health, because the architecture is poor and a setback. But because of Apple's size, it becomes an anchor that holds back progress. Apple should leave apps like this to mature development organizations that understand technology, security, and risk.

Oh yeah... and if I remember correctly, Gliimpse is a cloud-based health data aggregator. So, Apple may shift everything to the cloud anyway. But for the next few years, we are stuck with the steaming turd of Health.
Julien said:
Keep in mind Apple Health can also include medical data and medical data must comply to strict HIPPA standards.
Click to expand...
Yeah, and these medical data are copied from the cloud from other hosts who have been HIPAA-compliant for years.
 
ixxxviii said:
....Yeah, and these medical data are copied from the cloud from other hosts who have been HIPAA-compliant for years.
Click to expand...
Not disagreeing that it would be more convent for ME and YOU if Apple offered easer access to the data. It is just that Apple can't make it as easy as FitBit because of the medical implications. Also I think Apple has BIG plans to move into the medical area (actually more in moving the medical area to us) and would be a big disrupter. The established industry would LOVE to see a data breach to prove Apple is 'not fit' to work in the 'real' medical arena. So Apple is likely holding tight because THEY more than almost anyone can't afford a breach and the negative publicity it would garner. Remember ALL eyes are on Apple.

Even a 'perceived' breach like the iCloud picture scandal has negative repercussions.
 
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Julien said:
It is just that Apple can't make it as easy as FitBit because of the medical implications.
Click to expand...
If Apple does not have the chops to build a web-based architecture for Health data, then I think they made a huge mistake stuffing fitness and activity data in the same architecture. All of the other stuff about health data security is really a distraction from the root problem is that activity and fitness users cannot get to their data from other Apple devices, on the web, or easily and confidently move it across new device setups.

Apple clearly is moving forward with Health data and that probably includes a web-centric architecture. But, until then (and probably after, really), activity and fitness users are hamstrung.
 
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