What is Apple Health?

Apple Health is an iOS application introduced by Apple in iOS 8. It acts as a central health dashboard for iPhone users allowing them to view health data from numerous health apps in one place. More info on Apple Health can be found here.

Apple Watch data is also accessible via the connection to Apple Health.

Connecting Apple Health to Human API

Sharing data from Apple Health to Human API is a bit different than with most sources. This is because Apple Health data is stored solely on the user's iPhone. To share this data with Human API, we have created a Human API iOS app that users will use in conjunction with Human Connect.

Human Connect

When you enable Apple Health for your application, Apple Health and Apple Watch will be added to the list of sources in Connect.

When a user selects either of these, they will be shown the Human API login page where they will be prompted to install the Human API app.

Human API iOS App

After creating Human API credentials, your users will be directed to download the Human API iOS app from the App Store.

Once downloaded, there are three steps users must take before data is available:

1. Sign in with the Human API credentials (created using the Human API app)
2. Grant the Human API app access to each type of data stored in Apple Health as desired
   (this is the data that in turn will be accessible to you via Human API)
3. Let the app synchronize Apple Health data with the Human API server

How Often Does Apple Health Data Sync?

Unlike most sources where data resides in the cloud, Human API cannot directly pull updated data at will. Instead, the Human API app must be installed and allowed to pull data from the device. Users can leave the app active in the background and syncs will continue.

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More reliable syncs

In the app versions prior to v2.0, it was required to open the Human API app to instantiate a sync each time. After v2.0 was released, the app simply needs to be active in the background in order to continuously sync, which reduces friction on the sync process.

Handling Data From Apple Health

All Healthkit data (e.g. from activity summaries) will come through under the source value 5541a9678e7192cb4fb34fed, which represents the source Id for Healthkit at Human API.

Is there an Apple Health iOS SDK?

If you have your own iPhone application and wish to minimize the use of a separate Human API app, you may leverage our iOS SDK. The SDK allows your app to ingest Apple Health data from the user's device and associate it to Human API.

The SDK requires a Github account and permissions to access. Please contact [email protected] or your assigned Account Manager for more information.