HealthKit is proof that health is important to Apple. Together with the Apple Watch, this development kit provides the necessary tools to the developer and the user to create and enjoy, respectively, health and monitoring apps. The Apple Watch also incorporates the option to perform an ECG and helps determine if it is abnormal or not. During WWDC a few weeks ago, Apple showed the news of HealthKit among which we find ourselves new symptoms to track, the possibility of open ECGs with third-party applications and, finally, new mobility options on the Apple Watch.
ECGs can be opened with other apps thanks to HealthKit
HealthKit is an essential framework that integrates own and third-party health and fitness data to help people manage their personal health information. Learn about the latest HealthKit updates, providing read access to EKGs on Apple Watch, and record and track more than a dozen new symptoms and their severity. We will also review the latest types of mobility data, such as walking speed and stride length, to help people monitor and understand their mobility over time.
Un development kit is a set of tools that revolve around a theme and allow the developer to perform certain specific actions. Apple has dozens of development kits such as ARKit, HealthKit or ResearchKit. Today we will focus on HealthKit and its news presented at WWDC.
First, the EKG reading is opened to third-party applications. Therefore, developers will be able to create apps that allow logs to be stored and analyzed. An example could be the health centers in our cities that allow us to upload our electros directly from our iPhone or Apple Watch.
Second, Apple has included new symptoms to track inside the kit. Some of these new symptoms are wheezing, diarrhea, changes in sleep, nasal congestion, urinary incontinence, fatigue, bloating ... In this way, developers and researchers can correlate these symptoms and their evolution with existing diseases.
Finally, they have been integrated new mobility options inside the Apple Watch:
- Walking speed and stride length
- Ascent and descent speed of stairs
- 6 minute distance test
- Asymmetric hike