Health IT, Patient Engagement

Apple discovers women, adds period tracking to HealthKit

The Apple HealthKit health information platform would start tracking “reproductive health” in the forthcoming iOS 9, Apple said Monday.

By Neil Versel on June 08, 2015

News flash: Apple just discovered women.

Sunday, the day before the consumer tech giant opened its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, CEO Tim Cook issued a mea culpa about Silicon Valley’s image as a boys’ club.

“I think it’s our fault — ‘our’ meaning the whole tech community,” Cook said in an interview with Mashable. “I think in general we haven’t done enough to reach out and show young women that it’s cool to do it and how much fun it can be.”

Monday, apparently for the first time, Apple invited at least two female presenters on stage during the WWDC. It was a revelation for that community, based on the tweets Mashable compiled.

Then, Apple quickly dropped the biggest bombshell of all when Craig Federighi, senior vice president for software, in almost a throwaway line, said the HealthKit health information platform would start tracking “reproductive health” in the forthcoming iOS 9, according to Forbes.com. Translation: HealthKit, which I’m still not sold on, will let women track their menstrual cycles, as in, the health issue that affects pretty much all women for a significant part of their lives.

The notice flashed up on the screen for barely a second, it seems.

The Internet could hardly contain its ironic glee.

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By PurpleLab

https://twitter.com/bostonjay22201/status/607974353800708096

https://twitter.com/webster/status/607974271231520768

Congratulations to Apple!