Apple Health

For anyone looking to get better tracking and a bird’s eye view of your sleep habits, be sure to check out Sleep++ 2.0 available today. This latest version brings in a major sleep analysis algorithm overhaul to help users get a better understanding of nightly sleep patterns.

For users who frequently forget to stop their sleep tracking, the app’s update also introduces the ability to trim time off any extra hours accidentally accrued.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple Watch competitor Pebble has today announced a hefty update to its smartwatch experience. The update, which bumps the company’s Pebble Time smartphone app for iPhone to version 3.6 and the watch firmware to version 3.9, includes a variety of enhancements to Health, Messages, and more.

Expand
Expanding
Close

When news came out that Apple was working on a dedicated Health dashboard app, which would offer a way to take healthcare monitoring mobile, I was extremely excited. I had been recently diagnosed with traumatic arthritis in my knees and I needed a better all-in-one system to track my steps, weight, and BMI. None of the other apps on the market at the time seemed to do any one of those three especially well. Apple’s Health app has since become my go-to app for everything I wanted to log and more. It’s not perfect, but it’s a built-in dashboard with tie-ins to plenty of iOS apps.

Within a few weeks of using Health, I soon realized I wanted a better way to automate inputting data into the system. I eventually came to a methodology that worked great for me and decided it was time to share three of the different ways you can automate quickly logging your weight into the Health app.

Expand
Expanding
Close

This week’s iOS 9.3 beta software update for iPhone and iPad is a pretty major release for a mid-cycle version. New features including the F.lux-like Night Shift which lets you change the color temperature of your display and Touch ID plus secure passwords for Notes feel more major version features. Other parts like new 3D Touch quick actions for many of Apple’s stock apps feel more like playing catch up, but overall iOS 9.3 is shaping up to be an impressive release. Check out the details below:

Expand
Expanding
Close

Biometric specialist Valencell – whose technology is licensed by iRiver, LG, Sony and others – has filed a lawsuit accusing Apple of using underhand tactics to gain access to its patented technology for use in the Apple Watch.

The company claims that Apple violated three of its patents for improving the accuracy and reliability of heart-rate data when using the photoplethysmography (PPG) approach used in the Apple Watch. But the lawsuit alleges more than just patent infringement, reports AI: it also claims that Apple used deceptive techniques to get access to the technology …

Expand
Expanding
Close

iPhones have already been used for an impressive number of medical applications. We’ve seen them used to screen for skin cancer, manage diabetes, prevent blindness, provide eye examinations and diagnose everything from sleep apnea to bipolar episodes. But the next step could be a $250 organic chemistry lab we can carry in our pocket.

The WSJ has been talking to a couple of startups working in this field, including 6SensorLabs which has a device that can – with the help of a smartphone – detect whether a food really is gluten-free.

The Nima from 6SensorLabs is an organic-chemistry lab small enough to carry in your pocket. Right now it is only good for one thing: detecting gluten in foods at minuscule concentrations, as little as 20 parts per million, the FDA’s threshold for declaring a food “gluten-free.”

The company says that this could be just the start, with future versions able to detect the bacteria that cause food poisoning …

Expand
Expanding
Close

The iPhone is an amazing device. It fits in a pocket, yet it’s an incredibly powerful computer that connects us to the world, entertains us wherever we go, and captures quality photos and videos.

However, some of the iPhone’s tricks are hidden until you connect it to specific accessories. Did you know, for example, that you can save energy on your Christmas lights using your iPhone? Or improve the quality of your sleep with an iPhone-connected sensor? Or turn your car into a giant Siri-controlled entertainment and communications system? These accessories range in price from affordable to expensive, making them perfect gifts for iPhone users who want to unlock new capabilities. Read on to discover these hidden features, as well as the accessories you should grab or put on your wish list to unlock them…

Expand
Expanding
Close

In a wide-ranging interview with the Telegraph, Apple CEO Tim Cook has hinted that the company may launch more health-focused products in future – but will keep those separate from the Apple Watch. The reason, he says, is that the FDA approval needed for full-on health devices would slow down the pace of innovation of the Watch.

Cook hints that Apple may have more plans for the health sphere, in a revelation which will intrigue Wall Street, but he doesn’t want the watch itself to become a regulated, government-licensed health product. “We don’t want to put the watch through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) process. I wouldn’t mind putting something adjacent to the watch through it, but not the watch, because it would hold us back from innovating too much, the cycles are too long. But you can begin to envision other things that might be adjacent to it — maybe an app, maybe something else.” 

This represents a significant change from expectations …

Expand
Expanding
Close

AliveCor, maker of the iPhone-compatible Mobile ECG cardiac monitoring accessory (reviewed here), has unveiled a new Apple Watch version that can be worn as a wrist band. The tentatively-titled Apple Watch ECG goes beyond the heart rate sensor built into the Apple Watch, adding a two-electrode electrocardiogram (ECG) monitor directly into a flexible wristband similar in appearance to Apple’s Sport Band.

Combined with a native watchOS 2 app, the Apple Watch ECG can graph the wearer’s heart beat over extended periods of time, as well as recording heart activity and voice annotations (“I feel like my heart just skipped a beat”) simultaneously, a feature not found on the iPhone version. Additionally, thanks to the new accessory’s guaranteed position on the wrist, it “may be able to detect an upcoming event using continuous monitoring,” AliveCor notes. Like the iPhone version, AliveCor’s Apple Watch app will also be able to send annotated ECG readings directly to a technician or doctor for interpretation.

Rather than connecting to the Apple Watch using Bluetooth or the Watch’s hidden data port, Apple Watch ECG uses the same ultrasonic technology as the iPhone accessory, leveraging the Watch’s microphone to receive ECG data transmissions. This reduces the battery-powered accessory’s power consumption by 92% versus Bluetooth, while offering superior data bandwidth. Pending FDA approval, the Apple Watch ECG is currently planned for a 2016 release, and expected to sell for around $199. A video of the new wristband accessory in action is below…

Expand
Expanding
Close

Health accessories for iPhones, iPads, and iPods have become more numerous and diverse over the years, evolving from Apple’s early Nike+ run sensors to heart rate monitors, increasingly complex Wi-Fi scales with body fat and ambient room sensors, blood pressure cuff docks… and even Bluetooth toothbrushes. Some health accessories are undeniably useful, but others raise the question “why?” — why pay more to see my weight on an iPhone rather than the scale’s built-in screen? Why track daily tooth brushing, body fat percentages, or the humidity of one’s bathroom? People survived for thousands of years without charting every seemingly minor blip on their personal radars.

My perspective changed last month when my wife was diagnosed with a serious cardiac condition. One of those “seemingly minor blips” that can now be constantly monitored is your heartbeat, and when something’s wrong with your heart, advance knowledge literally makes the difference between living or dying. As it turns out, a San Francisco-based company named AliveCor is now on its third-generation version of an iPhone accessory that helps people with cardiac conditions. The AliveCor Mobile ECG ($75) is an FDA-approved electrocardiogram (ECG) monitor that can record and share your heartbeat directly from your iPhone. Measuring roughly 3.2″ by 1.3″ by 0.2″, Mobile EGC can self-attach to your iPhone’s back, or integrate with a bundled custom iPhone 6/6s case for only $80 (there’s an iPhone 5/5s case, too). Given my family’s sudden need for quick access to ECG data, keeping it with an iPhone makes sense, as this is an accessory we’ll want to have on hand whenever it may be needed…

Expand
Expanding
Close

Sleep tracking accessory maker Beddit is out with a new watchOS 2 app for Apple Watch today. Because Beddit offers a dedicated sensor for tracking your sleep duration and quality each night, Apple Watch is able to charge overnight as needed and still present sleep data in the morning. Thanks to hardware access granted to native software, Beddit’s watchOS 2 app lets Apple Watch double as a sleep tracker during the day for measuring naps and creating silent alarms. Just as Beddit’s watchOS 2 app is hitting the App Store, Beddit’s Smart Sleep Tracker is coming to Apple Stores around the world and apple.com for the first time starting today…
Expand
Expanding
Close

Whenever someone asks what I think of my Apple Watch, I explain that I like but don’t love it, and wouldn’t recommend it to everyone… yet. “In two or three years,” I say, “they’re going to be common, but right now, they don’t feel necessary.” Nice, yes. Necessary, no.

Last week, my life changed. Shortly after our kids went to school, my wife stopped breathing in our home. I was able to get her breathing again, and thanks to 911 and outstanding EMTs, she survived to be diagnosed with Brugada Syndrome, a rare heart condition that typically goes undetected before a massive, fatal attack. Once Brugada was suspected, doctors looked for records of her heartbeat, but couldn’t find much on file. Between ER and ICU visits, I remembered that her iPhone’s Health app contained three months of heart rate data, because her Apple Watch had been passively recording it. But would that data actually be useful?

A report earlier this year said Apple has wavered on adding irregular heart rate reporting and other health functionality to the Apple Watch, fearing additional governmental regulation and/or liability for potentially inaccurate results. Given what my wife just went through, I have a newfound appreciation for the Apple Watch’s existing heart rate sensor, and a strong request for Apple: be bold on expanding Apple Watch’s health features, as well as its ability to be continuously worn. It’s nice for a watch to estimate calories burned after a workout, but merely having advance notice of her irregular heart rate could have prevented my wife’s near-death experience, and who knows how many other lives better sensors could save…

Expand
Expanding
Close

Congrats, iPhone owners: Popular online food ordering service Eat24 has determined that you are healthier than users of Google’s Android. That’s based on data it collected from its mobile app over a three month period, tracking information regarding how ordering habits differed across the rival platforms.

Expand
Expanding
Close

I asked back in May whether you thought the Apple Watch Activity app would lead to a leaner, fitter you. At that point, more than 80% of you said that it either would or already had.

A Wristly survey yesterday suggested that the reality perhaps hadn’t quite lived up to this promise, but still contained some pretty impressive numbers. More than 50% of Watch owners said that they were exercising more and were making better health choices, with around 40% reporting weight loss.

For those of us who were lucky enough to take delivery of our Apple Watches on day one, we’re now three months in. Plenty of time for the novelty to wear off – and to see whether the anticipated benefits really have shown up on the bathroom scale, in our waistlines or in the gym … 
Expand
Expanding
Close

First pitched by Steve Jobs in 2007 as “an iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator,” the iPhone has since evolved into a medical device of sorts as software has gotten smarter and sensors have become more advanced in recent years.

Apple embraced this with iOS 8 and the rollout of HealthKit, a framework which allows medical and health apps to share data with each other and your doctors with your permission. Apple’s open source ResearchKit took it a step further by allowing developers to turn apps into scientific health and medical research tests.

Scientific American recently profiled three smartphone apps in development that point to how the iPhone could become even better at monitoring our health. The apps in development aim to determine what a patient’s cough means, diagnose sleep apnea, and even predict a bipolar episode before it starts…
Expand
Expanding
Close

A few days after Buzzfeed revealed that Purdue Pharma was investigating the use of Apple’s ResearchKit platform to assist in developing new drugs, the piece has been updated to reveal that GlaxoSmithKline has similar plans.

GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world’s largest drug developers, told BuzzFeed News it is “currently working on integrating (ResearchKit) into clinical trials and planning to start in coming months.”

While some had assumed that ResearchKit would be used to assist only with not-for-profit research, Apple said that the company is willing to make the platform available to “anybody that is going to make an impact on people’s health” … 
Expand
Expanding
Close