There’s little doubt that the Apple Watch’s most common use is for health and well-being tracking. Whether you’re an athlete tracking performance, someone with cardiac issues or are at a high risk of falls, Apple has packed so many sensors into the Apple Watch that it has become powerful data collector. But that’s the problem. We have lots of data but getting useful insights from it remains a massive challenge.
Privacy, security and usefulness – a three-way tug-of-war
Apple has, for many years, touted its approach to privacy and security. While HealthKit, the developer toolkit that enables software makers to leverage the data and insights from the Apple Watch and health and well-being apps, has enabled developers to create some wonderful apps (my current favourite is Welltory) there’s no way for me to simply access all my health-related data and carry out my own analyses.
It is possible to export data from Apple Health.
- Launch the Health app on your iPhone
- Launch your personal settings by tapping on the picture in the top right corner of the screen
- Scroll down and tap on Export All Health Data
This approach makes sense when you consider that Apple is going to great lengths to ensure the privacy and security of your health data. But it doesn’t allow you to simply sync your data to a spreadsheet or some other tool for your own analysis.
Apps in the middle
The role of personal health analytics has been largely handed over to app developers by Apple. And some developers are doing a reasonable job or bringing data together. Welltory has a nice online dashboard that displays lots of data and shows some of the relationships. For example, it tracks how focussed I am against sound levels and against my heart rate while I sleep.
This is a step forward from just collecting and graphing a single metric. There are other apps that accomplish similar things – some through data collection, others by asking users to self-report and others that combine both approaches.
Apps are sitting at the intersection of privacy, security and providing user-friendly views of the data that provide some insights. But what we see is still quite rudimentary. I can’t ask a relatively complex question.
Tell me about Wednesday morning
Most Tuesdays, we make a Mexican-themed dinner. Last night it was chicken burritos with homemade guacamole, corn chips, beans, jalapeños and some other sides. I generally go to bed at about the same time, between 10:30 and 11:00PM, and wake at the same time at around 7:00AM.
But each week, I don’t wake up feeling the same on Wednesday morning. While we had chicken this week, last week we had pork. And instead of plain corn chips, we had nachos. Does this make a difference to sleep quality? Or did what I ate earlier in the day matter. And what about exercise? I ran yesterday but did a CrossFit-style of workout the week before.
At the moment I am very data rich. My Apple Watch tracks my body temperature, heart rate and activity. I use MyFitnessPal to track my meals. I can measure sleep duration and quality, at least within the limits of an algorithmically-based approach. Weather information, environmental noise and other external factors are also collected and tracked.
But I still can’t ask a question like – why did I run faster today than last week over the same course?
Despite the wealth of data I have, I remain insight poor.
What I want from Apple Health in iOS 17
The power of artificial intelligence and machine learning has leapt ahead over recent years. Apple’s investment in processor technology has given rise the Neural Engine which is specifically focussed on accelerating artificial intelligence operations and machine learning tasks. 2023 marks the sixth year of this technology being available to developers.
But a search for health apps that use the Neural Engine comes up blank. As far as I can tell this is because HealthKit doesn’t hook into Neural Engine. In turn, this means all we can hope for at the moment is graphs, like the ones from Welltory, that provide some correlations but a very limited ability to get real insights.
I want iOS 17 to give developers the ability to enable users to ask questions and to get answers that help them make better decisions about activity, nutrition and sleep so they can improve their health and well-being.
Tools like ChatGPT, while imperfect, have given us an insight into the realm of the possible. Apple has been working on HealthKit for almost nine years and the Neural Engine for about six. It’s time to let them flex their muscles.
Anthony is the founder of Australian Apple News. He is a long-time Apple user and former editor of Australian Macworld. He has contributed to many technology magazines and newspapers as well as appearing regularly on radio and occasionally on TV.