“Apple Inc. said it’s delaying the release of new health-tracking software that it has trumpeted as one of the main features of its new operating system for the iPhone and iPad,” Adam Satariano and Tim Higgins report for Bloomberg. “HealthKit, the health- and fitness-monitoring system, was pulled from inclusion in Apple’s new iOS 8 mobile-software release that went out to customers yesterday, Cupertino, California-based Apple said in a statement. The tools will be available later this month, Apple said.”
Satariano and Higgins report, “‘We discovered a bug that prevents us from making HealthKit apps available on iOS 8,’ Trudy Muller, a spokeswoman for Apple, said yesterday. ‘We’re working quickly to have the bug fixed in a software update and have HealthKit apps available by the end of the month.'”
“HealthKit is software that synchronizes data from various health and fitness apps, and works as a central dashboard where iPhone users can check their health data,” Satariano and Higgins report. “The software will be a major feature of the Apple Watch, which was also introduced last week, when it goes on sale sometime next year.”
Read more in the full article here.
Will everyone who wants to expose via the easily hacked cloud the innermost privacy of their entire medical history, records, medications, diagnoses, and secrets they have shared only with their trusted doctors please raise your hands?
And don’t tell me that you will be able to secure that data exclusively on just your own devices. If you believe that, then you need to find another site of neophytes who can share your fantasies. Conclusion: who cares if the HealthKit software is broken? It will always be broken. Always.
Your negativity is predictable. Nothing is perfect, as you well know.
Everyone is already accessing data about you? How many patient questionnaires have you filled out by hand in your life? Every one of them asks all kinds of information including your SSN, and they photocopy your driver’s license and insurance cards. Do they effectively secure that hardcopy? Do they effectively secure the medical database in which this data is entered? Who runs their backups? Are they trustworthy?
On top of that, have you thoroughly read the paperwork that you sign that allows your medical practitioner to legally share your information with all kinds of other business entities?
Then you get a referral for an MRI and do the same thing at that office, and the dentist’s office, and so on. Do you really believe that all of this paper and the various computer systems in which it eventually resides are secure? Granted, pulling all of this information into one HealthKit database has the *potential* to expose more of your data at one time. But it also eliminates the multiple copies at various locations and offers the advantage of a major tech company with a vested interest in protecting your data putting its considerable resources behind maintaining that security. Do you believe that your family doctor, dentist, physical therapist, etc. is even half as good at being able to secure your data? I don’t.
It is very possible that HealthKit could improve security in the healthcare industry. And I really like the idea of an accurate, long-term health database that keeps me from having to answer the same damn questions over and over again. When did I have that shoulder surgery? Can I remember all of the relevant family medical history to write on yet another form? HealthKit sounds like something that should have been started at least three decades ago. As usual, Apple has to make people see the obvious.
Thank you for spelling out some of the benefits of such a system. As one who briefly worked in the medical profession as a data analyst, I can attest to the need for individual health portmanteaux, independent of databases of health care providers which date quickly and thus carry an inherent risk factor. Personal collation of one’s vital signs and their timely transmission to doctors is the future of our health and longevity. Apple should hardly be condemned for such efforts.
JM, predictable as ever with the pointless whining. Why do you do this, where’s the payoff ?
Just simply fuck off.
Well put sir 👏
That was for KingMel, oops sorry
Name one case where Apples cloud was hacked….fact it has never been hacked by even the most professional hackers.
Someone guessing guessing passwords and questions is not a hack by any definition.
I can tell you for certain, Jay, that no one gives a damn about your medical history.
Oh look, it’s Jay, the unregistered coward who lives to pee on everyone’s parade. Let’s see what he’s posted this time. Well, that was predictable.
——RM
Find it, fix it, and move on. Better to find it now and delay the software release (despite the negative response that this action will undoubtedly engender) than to find the bug after releasing the software (which would result in a global scatstorm of epic proportions).
I am already imagining the public outrage that the media (bloggers, pundits, bloated gas bags, etc.) will invent over this issue.
Lots of time to fix it before it affects sales of the Apple Watch.
Hey guess what? When your doctor’s office files a claim electronically to your insurance company, your data goes over the internet where it’s stored on servers that clearly are accessible via the internet. Do they allow you to sign in and view things online? There’s your data again.
So your data is somewhere in the cloud already.
Not to mention when your doctor files a prescription over the web to your favourite pharmacy: How do they secure that a connection and the data they keep? Who do they share/sell their collection with…
All the more reason to not trust the quacks who are in the business of selling your data.
What is interesting here is that many MDN regulars have undying faith in Apple’s security despite the fact that Apple has never guaranteed it — in fact, Apple explicitly tells you that any data you put in the iCloud is neither private nor secure, and Apple takes no liability. iAd destroyed my illusion that Apple isn’t playing the same games that Google does with one’s data. Lack of critical investigation by the loyal MDN religious congregation is all it takes for a formerly great and relatively trustworthy company to slowly rot from within. If Apple truly cared about your privacy, it wouldn’t brag in press releases, it would update the service agreements to guarantee users that their stuff isn’t being datamined.
I was wondering what happened to that. Hmmm…
You should never give your SSN number to doctors, etc. in the old days, that was the membership number, but now, most if not all have a different number, so there is no need to provide SSN. Doing so just leaves you ripe for identity theft. All it takes is one dishonest medial employee to take your SSN out of the oh so very secure filing cabinet in the doctors office, and poof…your live is turned upside down when your number is sold and you identity hijacked. Don’t do it.
Several bugs were detected, two of them giant bugs, one in mountain view and one in korea. That’s the reason why Apple has to delay till bug spray at hand.