The iOS 8 Review
by Brandon Chester on September 17, 2014 1:00 PM ESTHealth
Talking about the Health app in iOS 8 is difficult. Much like extensibility, what Health enables depends greatly on developer support that doesn't exist yet with iOS 8 being newly released. What can be explained right now is how it will work and what features it offers beyond being a simple aggregator of a user's health information.
At its core, Apple's Health app is a hub for keeping track of the health information from several different apps and devices. It will be able to sync data with health applications from other developers that use Apple's HealthKit framework. Many of these applications rely on data input by the user, but applications that integrate with fitness devices like the Nike FuelBand can also automatically send information that the device tracks to the Health application.
The Health app consists of four main screens. The dashboard is a user customizable section that displays cards with information about various health statistics. These cards display the information in a graph, with buttons at the top of the page to change the scale of the graph's horizontal axis.
The Health Data screen contains all the possible health information categories that the app keeps track of. You can search by a certain category such as body measurements, or you can view a list with all the various different types of information. Data points for a category can be added manually or sourced from applications that the user gives the Health app permission to access. Other applications for tracking health information can also request access to the information stored in Apple's Health app.
The Sources section contains a list of all applications that are allowed to access and update the information stored in the Health app. Once developers start to hook into the Health app using Apple's HealthKit framework, the Health app will become an area where a user can view all the information from various different health focused applications in a single place.
Medical ID
Medical ID is a new feature in iOS 8 where users can create a section that displays their personal and medical information. It's integrated into the Health app and it has sections for various information like Medical Conditions, Emergency Contacts, Blood Type, Allergies, Medications, and Organ Donor status. These are all things that would be of immense value to emergency workers when helping a person who is unable to give the information themselves. Medical ID can be made accessible via the emergency dialer so it can be viewed even on devices that have a passcode enabled.
I've personally been in situations where I was unable to give information like medications and allergies to emergency services about another person who needed immediate assistance. If you have any conditions that might be important, I encourage you to fill out the Medical ID and enable lockscreen access so paramedics or doctors can access it if they need to. It could save your life someday. What's unfortunate is that this is an Apple service for iOS, as it's something that could really be helpful if it was on every device. There's also some privacy concerns (e.g. anyone with access to your phone could view this information), but as always you have to decide which is more important.
The Health app is also an iPhone only application. I know of many elderly people who own iPads but do not own iPhones. I think Apple should bring the Health app over to iPad, or at the very least the Medical ID feature, as the elderly are a segment of the population that could benefit most from it.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
164 Comments
View All Comments
NetMage - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
With both iPhone and iPad logged into same Apple account, in iPad WiFi you should see the iPhone Hotspot as a choice - selecting it will activate the iPhones hotspot and then connect to it.soryuuha - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
so..can you finally send any file over bluetooth?Impulses - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
Huh, you couldn't before? I guess I haven't really sent anything over BT since I had a dumb phone. Actually I sent stuff over BT from my first Android phone to other dumb phones for a while (ringtones mostly), seems like a pretty antiquated method to do anything now... Then again, Inge been using NFC for similarly basic stuff for like two years now. ;)SirPerro - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
"Many of the improvements are in areas of the OS that have long needed to be improved or changed. There are also number of additions that take a great amount of inspiration from other mobile operating systems. While this may be seen as copying by some, for users the end result is that their experience is improved and they have features they did not have before, which is what really matters."That wasn't what mattered in the multibillion lawsuits Apple filed in the past, right?
SirPerro - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
The whole "update the OS to update the email app" thing is reaching to android 1.6 levels of stupidityNetMage - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
iOS updates are differential. Putting all updates on the same schedule has its advantages, and iOS development is still a fairly small team.bigstrudel - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
Clean install iOS 8 on the 5S gave me 6280 on Octane. And I never got 5700 (Low 5000's at best) on iOS 7. There's a lot more improvement here than indicated in your review.NA1NSXR - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
I don't know why the conclusion is so tempered. iOS7 was a terrible release that was basically a physical makeover with very mixed results for usability. iOS8 looks like a solid step forward for features and usability on a platform that needs a lot of these things being introduced. I am staying behind until a JB is released or until I take delivery of my new device but considering the ecosystem this is one of the biggest releases in many years.solipsism - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
I love being able to make and receive phone calls on my Mac but I have 4 issues with it. Some severe while others are just annoying.1) The speed at which the iPhone starts ringing and Mac starts ringing needs to be more in sync. The same goes for after you pick up one of the other. Perhaps a small, more efficient communication protocol for letting each device know what about the session.
2) You can make or receive a call on the Mac and then hand it off to the iPhone by pressing the top bar on the iPhone. This does not work the other way. Why doesn't it work the other way?
3) There is no dialer pad for the Mac so if you make or receive a call that requires you to press buttons for an automated system you have to then grab your iPhone and go to the Phone app and then the dialer pad to input the keys. You also have to makes to do this without pressing the top bar or it will disconnect from the Mac and you'll be using your iPhone for the duration of that call.
4) The app that open on the Mac says FaceTime in the Dock. Not a deal breaker by any means but it just all looks sloppy and incomplete.
PS: Am I the only one that still doesn't fully grasp what is considered Handoff and what is Continuity. Is it a unified term "Handoff and Continuity"? I'd think continuity is what has existed for years now with iCloud syncing data between apps, but handoff is the evolution of that to actually have the app show up in the Dock (Mac) or Fast App Switcher (iOS) to be clicked.
NetMage - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
Continuity enables not just syncing data, but syncing state as well (e.g. editing a document on one device, switching to the other device and picking up at exactly the same place).