iPdOS 17 brings a number of new features to the tablet. Among those changes is the arrival of Apple Health. Securely syncing from the iPhone, Apple Health for the iPad gives us the opportunity for a bigger screen experience that should aid us in out well-being journey. But does it deliver?
Tracking your well-being
Tracking a specific health metric at a point in time can be useful. Doctors use those measures all the time. They take your blood pressure, count your breaths (they do it without you noticing while talking to you so you don’t change your rate) and order blood tests and other analyses. These metrics are all useful but they are limited.
A better way to track your well-being is to record data at regulate intervals and look at longitudinal trends. For example, you weight might be 75kg today which puts you in a healthy range. But what of your weight six months ago was 85kg? or 70kg? And when it was measured at other times it was significantly different again? It’s the trends that tell a more complete story.
But an even more powerful way to look at well-being is to correlate a number of metrics to help determine the causes of changes in key metrics. If we take weight (which is one of the easiest things to measure) and correlate it with sleep (which the Apple Watch makes simple to measure), is there a possible relationship between sleep quality and weight change?
Carrying out such analyses on the iPhone was challenging. There simply isn’t the screen real estate to do it easily. But does the iPad make that any better? Or is Apple health on the iPad just a bigger version of the iPhone version?
Does the iPad make health analysis easier?
For most of the last decade, we’ve been hearing about the investment Apple has been making in a number of areas such as health and artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, while the ability to view data on a larger screen is useful there’s no real push, at least in the current developer beta of of IOS 17, to help make sense of the data and unearth anything that isn’t obvious.
I can see the most recent reading on the metrics I deem to be my favourites and there are some nifty trends graphs but there’s no attempt to correlate anything. For example, my Apple Watch tracks fluctuations in my temperature and the duration and quality of my sleep. But it doesn’t provide a link between them
There’s a significant body of research that links optimal waking times with changes in body temperature. But that’s not used. Similarly, while I can track my nutrition using MyFitnessPal and my weight with a set of scales, Apple Health does not provide an easy way to look at those measures together.
I can look at things such as my intake of macros (protein, carbohydrates and fats) but not their effect on my running times.
There are some nice graphs but no real insights that can help someone make better well-being decisions.
In short, bringing Apple Health to the iPad looks great but it feels like a wasted opportunity to help people make better well-being decisions. It’s a useful tracking tool but it doesn’t provide an easy way to get better insights or guidance other than the same generic blog-style content that was available on the iPhone.
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.