Arielle Duhaime-Ross writing at The Verge about what Apple left out of its “Health” app:
When it comes right down to it, most smartphone-carrying women want an app that will notify them before they end up with a blood stain on their jeans. That alone is nothing short of revolutionary. […]
So, is it really too much to ask to that Apple treat women, and their health, with as much care as they’ve treated humanity’s sodium intake?
It’s not too much to ask, but I’m not surprised that a product from a male-dominated tech culture missed this obvious feature.
Corner Stone
“The War On Women” tag? Irony, or The Death of Irony?
John Cole +0
As a male, who thankfully does not have to deal with that awful bullshit on a monthly basis, I thought most women knew when they were going to have their period and unless they had other health issues, were on a schedule. That’s how they know when they have missed their period. It honestly would never have occurred to me to have to need an app for that.
Botsplainer
Mix, you do know that it is a movable date, and not the same as a daily pill reminder?
TooManyJens
@John Cole +0: It helps to have something to remind you of the fact that, say, tomorrow will be Day 28 (or Day 32, or whatever’s usual for you) after the start of your last period, so you might want to be sure you’ve got tampons in your bag.
Tiny Tim
Not all women are that regular, but even for the ones who are, general calendar apps don’t have a simple “schedule reminder every 28 days” button.
Mnemosyne
@Botsplainer:
Actually, it’s a very common feature in a lot of app programs. I have App Box Pro on my iPhone and, yes, it has a “Ladies Calendar.” The apps are there and have existed pretty much since PDAs were invented, so I have to say that I am also surprised that Apple didn’t include something that’s so common.
srv
I encourage Apple to add this feature and obliterate the app competition that various women developers have created for this function. It’s what a dudebro would do.
KG
@TooManyJens: i used to have an app that would track periods, didn’t realize it at first because it did a bunch of other things too. you can set the number of days for the period and in between. and i’ll admit, i used it in relation to a couple of women in my life.
ETA: @Mnemosyne: that’s the one, actually.
constitutional mistermix
@Corner Stone: Irony
@Botsplainer: The point of these apps is to gather metrics from which useful predictions and/or observations can be made. Example: number of falls and inhaler usage, both of which are in the health app.
Punchy
I always thought periods were quite regular. Like at the end of every sentence.
Major Major Major Major
@Punchy: Some women use exclamation points, you know!
kc
Speaking as a woman: Really?
villageidiocy
@John Cole +0:
Included in EVERY woman’s general exam (meaning, you aren’t going in for a broken leg or a bad cough), in addition to BP, weight, pulse, etc., is the question “when was your last period”? Tell me if you can guess that calendar date off the top of your head? Sometimes . . . but many other things occupy a person’s mind on the way to the doctor.
That 28 day thing? It’s an average. Some folks are every 21 days, some are every 45, some skip around. Some folks know when things are happening because they get the same premenstrual signs every time, but some women don’t have any noticeable premenstrual changes so having a reminder is a clothes saver. Many folks vary widely over a lifetime. Sixteen year-olds and 45 year-olds don’t have the same bodies or hormones or pregnancy experiences, all of which can change your cycle.
And this doesn’t even cover the more detailed issues of conception, or contraception.
Yeah, they don’t teach this stuff in ‘health class’ to teenagers, just the abbreviated version, and most guys think the details are icky so we don’t bother educating our partners and friends with the details. I’m not surprised you don’t know this, nor that the male dominated culture at Apple think it’s not important.
cleek
Apple already did this. it’s called a Reminder.
they’re dead-simple to add.
i have one for my garbage (once a week), and one for my recycling (every other week), and one to Frontline the cats (every 6 weeks).
Roger Moore
@John Cole +0:
Even for regularly scheduled events, most people need reminders. That’s why we invented things like calendars, calendar apps that pop up reminders of your schedule, etc., even for events that we ought to be able to remember for ourselves. Also, if you read the full article, they point out that it’s a good idea to keep a record in the same way it’s good to keep a regular record of any kind of important health information.
raven
28 Days was and ass kickin Athens all-female band back in the day!
Xantar
Honest question asked out of genuine ignorance: how does such an app gather data?
The HealthKit app gathers data through devices that measure your body. The iPhone has a built in pedometer that measures how many steps you take. The Watch will measure your heart rate with sensors against your wrist. The GPS will track how far you travel. Using all of those allows the app to calculate how many calories you burn. And so on and so forth.
So how does the HealthKit app on the iPhone track periods? Or is the user supposed to manually enter in her data every month?
Roger Moore
@Xantar:
I would assume so. Not all the other information you’re likely to enter will be automatically uploaded either, unless you’re willing to replace all your existing devices (e.g. scale, glucose monitor, etc.) with compatible connected versions. Even having those connected devices won’t help for some of the stuff they track, like inhaler uses or eating habits. A lot of stuff needs to be tracked manually.
The Other Chuck
@Xantar:
Through an iPad of course.
cat
A) They dudebro’d it and it never occurred to them women might have different needs.
B) They are Glibitarians and didn’t think it was ‘fair’ to add a bunch of functionality men couldn’t use. Lets ignore the Men centric design of the phone since we are Glibitarians.
C) They did do a VoC with women and when they realized ‘family planning’ was part of features they’d need to add to HealthKit they did a CBA on it and dropped the feature. AAPL is a very timid in that It will not do anything upsets the White Upper Class that they perceive as their core market.
Botsplainer
@villageidiocy:
My wife’s has historically been easy to track, particularly when the kids were still living at home. It always started whenever we were packing to leave on a couple’s beach vacation without them, or whenever we were able to arrange a lone weekend when they were all going away to do something.
Like a clock, it was.
villageidiocy
@villageidiocy: I have to add that I think her (small, and only part of the article) comment about “smartphone carrying women” needing a specific app to remind them is kind of beside the point. Most of those women have the reminders part of their favorite calendar figured out, thankyouverymuch. The real need is one for tracking, and integrating it with other health data. It can be enlightening to see what affects a menstrual cycle.
TrishB
@Roger Moore: Right, and for a woman with concomitant health issues, it might be very handy to find out that when your blood sugar is out of whack, your menses may also be off kilter. Sure, I can put it on my calendar, but my calendar isn’t a health tracker. Nor am I my best friend, who has always been 28 days +/- 3 hours. Yes, she’s tracked this in Excel for over 20 years.
Ripley
28-ish Days Later.
aimai
@John Cole +0: Oh John, John, John you adorable, gruff, jerk. Every woman’s cycle is different–lots of things can interfere and postpone or speed up your cycle, and cycles themselves can be of different duration and intensity. Especially women who are trying to get pregnant but who have fertility issues may need to track their cycles. But even women who are not trying to get pregnant but who are simply monitoring their overall health might want to keep track of their periods.
Mike J
@Botsplainer:
I was going to say, “when ever I spend more than $1000 on airline tickets to bring the gf out to where ever I’m working. “
srv
@cat: I think you are confused beween Apple and Android.
Women are much more likely to be iPhone than Android. I guess White Upper Class wymen don’t have periods.
aimai
@The Other Chuck: Well played!
I’d like to point out that there are a number of apps for stuff that parents need to track that we used to do by hand. There’s a lot of quantifying and tracking of data bout feeding infants, and their elimination/diapering schedule, or their sleep/nap/wake schedules which have been developed already. My point here is that we are a data driven society and that more and more our medical professionals are requesting that we be able to offer them information, hard data, and even charts to express these data over time. There’s so much money in parenting that there are tons of these apps–the women in my new mother’s groups are constantly inputting data while nursing the babies. This comes in handy when they take the babies in for checkups and they can refer to the data when they are trying to figure out why the baby is gaining or losing weight.
scav
@cat: APPL and sexual content in general as well, no? Maybe they couldn’t even write the reports on necessary content, too many words were scrubbed.
Then again, all the project meetings could have just dissolved into manly sniggering giggles and put-down contests etc. so they just gave up and moved on.
Walker
I don’t understand how HealthKit is supposed to figure this out.
HealthKit is not a magic API that guesses where you are in your cycle. Heck, HealthKit does not even compute your sodium intake for you. HealthKit is a security policy API that allows 3d-party apps to share medical information without breaking HIPAA laws.
Apple does not know a damn thing about how to monitor your sodium intake. In fact, if you made a few changes to the API, you could turn around and call it GradeKit, an API that allows you to share student information with violating FERPA. That does not mean it is smart enough to assign a student a letter grade automatically. All it does is manage information security.
The onus is on a 3d party app developer. Apple is just giving the apps a way to share information.
chopper
@The Other Chuck:
(slow clap)
David in NY
oh, never mind
KG
just noticed one of the newsmax headlines was about Limbaugh uncovering “blackmail.” turns out he’s upset because apparently the Stop Rush campaign from a few years ago and general protest/boycott of his show is astroturfed. apparently, shadowy groups trying to impose their will on others is no fun when it’s not conservatives.
heh.
Calouste
@Mnemosyne:
Well, Apple forgot to include the rather common “cellular connection” functionality in yesterday’s update for the iPhone…
BerkeleyMom
A few years ago my husband’s phone pinged with a reminder of something. He was in another room so I checked to see what it was–a notice that I was due for my period. Apparently he plugged in the dates so as to stay out of my way, I’m guessing. I proceeded to delete the reminder. At least Apple didn’t create this PR nightmare feature.
gwangung
@TrishB:
I’m gonna repeat this, because it’s pretty relevant, and, as a guy, I never would have known this without someone giving me a clue.
Learned something here, instead of just bloating. Imagine that.
Botsplainer
@BerkeleyMom:
I swear, we really, really don’t keep track of that, ever, or ever believe that there’s ever a time that we don’t want to be in your all’s presence.
Honest, pinkie swear….
scav
@David in NY: Well, welcome to the usual reaction, they do rather just roll on. It amuses and impresses themselves.
alhutch
These apps already exist, so Apple didn’t need to reinvent that particular wheel. My wife put such an app on my iPad and it forewarns me of the dangerous PMS time each cycle.
Belafon
@BerkeleyMom: So, you’re against the feature, or somehow Apple had better detect that a woman is using it.
Belafon
@alhutch:
The difference in your wife’s reaction versus BerkeleyMom‘s is funny.
Mnemosyne
@BerkeleyMom:
Either that, or he didn’t want to bug you for sex while you were at high tide, so to speak. Though I have no idea if you all go ahead during those times.
I don’t think my husband tracks that but I’m still on the Pill (begged for one more year even though I turned 45) and I’m usually pretty communicative about what is and is not a good weekend or week for a vacation.
bemused
@BerkeleyMom:
Deleting reminder is hilarious.
cat
@srv: They do and they also give their white upper class children phones and if said phone ever suggested that now might be a safe time for their precious flowers to have sex we’d have #activism the likes of which even God has never seen.
The dudebro in me would find the iBabys very amusing, but I don’t think other people would.
cat
@scav: Apple’s policies are very confusing and a bit hypocritical IMO.
50 shades of grey is Ok content, but a medical education app about the vagina and all its functions is not.
Randy Khan
Apple is pretty well known for not doing focus groups or other consumer research of the sort that would have made it obvious that this would have been a feature of interest to women. (Although, honestly, I would have expected the Mayo Clinic to have said something.)
And perhaps it’s worth mentioning that Apple’s CEO is a gay man, who probably hasn’t thought much about menstrual cycles in his daily life. That’s one more argument for gender diversity in the software design team, I guess.
skerry
@John Cole +0:
I never considered my periods to be awful. I think you are, again, uninformed. Every woman is different.
My mother told me that my period was God’s way of telling me that I wasn’t pregnant and reminding me not to get pregnant next month.
Corner Stone
@gwangung:
Wait a second…you’re a dude!?
This may be the most shocking thing in this whole thread.
David in NY
@scav: Thanks for the comment, though I had pulled mine not wanting to get embroiled given a comparison I made. It is kind of a sophomoric response to the subject — and I mean maybe high school sophomores, nervous about something, so better make a joke.
scav
@cat: They are rather all about the control, and the acclaim, and full-stage launch poses until something goes wrong and then it’s a bit 3rd party ap developers fault!
Villago Delenda Est
So, is it just me, or is it like John Kyl got a gig as a conslutant at Apple?
(Standard HuffPo link warning for those who might get the vapors)
Mnemosyne
@Walker:
There are already a TON of 3rd party apps that do this. Search the iTunes Store for “period tracker” and you get 190 results.
So why did Apple not tap one of them to join the club?
Villago Delenda Est
@Randy Khan:
Being a gay man doesn’t make you special in that regard. A lot of at least nominally in public straight men (see my previous post) are vile fuckhead shit who demonstrate that they have no fucking business holding a public office in this regard.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
SATSQ: Testosterone addled fuckheads.
Calouste
@cat: Nothing confusing about that. How much money do you think Apple makes of 50 Shades of Grey and how much money do you think they would make of a medical education app?
Villago Delenda Est
@KG: Yeah, my heart pumps fucking buttermilk for the poor oppressed racist, sexist, fascist sack of very offensive barnyard waste material.
Villago Delenda Est
@Punchy: InteRt00bes DoDeZ don’t believe in regular periods. Or consistent use of capitals, or conventional spelling, for that matter. I thawt U knowed dat?
Corner Stone
@Villago Delenda Est:
Speaking of the Health app…you should probably get that checked out.
Villago Delenda Est
@John Cole +0: JC, it’s not bullshit. It’s biology. I mean, I hate that my bladder nowadays, due to medication, goes into the “void me! void me!” mode every three hours or so even when it’s not anywhere near filled to capacity like it would get at one of those frat house kegger parties some 35 years ago, or at Oktoberfest when I was stationed in Germany and got out of REFORGER early enough to go, but even though it seems like bullshit, no, it’s biology.
So count your blessings, as all those asshole orthodox Jews do who thank their invisible sky buddy of Abraham they were not born a woman.
TrishB
@Mnemosyne: The pill never made me perfectly regular, but have you asked the doc about going on the mini-pill (progesterone analog only). I was taking one from 40 – 46 until it dawned on me and the doc there was no longer anything to be regulated. At 47, keeping my fingers crossed that the whole shebang is done. My sis was completely official by 49, so I have hope.
Villago Delenda Est
@Corner Stone: I’ll take it up with my VA physician tomorrow, along with checking my A1C and blood pressure.
My blood pressure, I might add, is not helped by the existence of that Nazi Blimp.
TrishB
@gwangung: Glad to be helpful, but “bloating”? Just asking.
Mnemosyne
@TrishB:
I’ll have to ask about that at my next appointment — thanks! Barrier methods suck for me because I have a lot of skin sensitivities and that is not the place you want a painful rash because your skin decides it doesn’t like nonoxynol-9.
srv
@cat: Apple doesn’t want to offend upper class, predominantly urban twitterati, white women by having an app where their white kids will know when it’s safe to practice the rhythm method?
Do you actually know any urbane upper class white folk or are you just grasping to fit iPhone product development into your ideology?
TrishB
@Mnemosyne: It’s always amazing what the docs don’t mention unless asked. My 21 year old niece made an appointment to discuss Nexplanon (3 yr implant). The doc told her it would be much easier to get shots every 3 months, oh, and anyway her insurance didn’t cover it. All this despite the fact that not only was she willing to pay out of pocket, but so were her parents, if need be. Young woman had done her research and knew what was best for her. Remembering one more pill or appointment was not it. Turns out the doc’s office didn’t usually do that implant, so it had to be special ordered, so doctor’s convenience, not patient’s needs.
Origuy
Apple does employ women, you know, including in R & D. I know a woman who used to be the person in charge of the iTunes store. She was on call 24/7 from Christmas Eve through New Years. It’s possible that they considered this feature and decided not to include it for some reason.
alhutch
@Belafon: I think she did it to remind me to be less of a jerk that week. :^)
scav
@Origuy: So, if they really meant it, the decision becomes laudable and above comment?
gwangung
@Corner Stone: Why surprised? Trying to hit me up for a date?
Go ahead and ask. Might surprise you….
gwangung
@TrishB: Bloating, blathering, same difference (for me apparently……mind is made of mush this afternoon…)…
TrishB
@gwangung: Understood. It’s just that for some reason the whole concept of bloating seemed germane to this particular discussion. Wasn’t sure if your Freudian slip was showing.
different-church-lady
@Walker: This is slowly (and somewhat regretfully) becoming my favorite part of a Mistermix tech thread: the part where someone who actually knows whats going on with the technology clears up all the misconceptions and horseshit that got rolling in the initial post, after which 52 other people comment on credulously.
different-church-lady
@Calouste: The under-estimated the number of smart-phone users who cling to the obsolete idea of making phonecalls on their “phones”.
TrishB
@different-church-lady: Odd that even people in the tech industry found a really basic tracking metric to be missing in this tool. Many of the other entries also have to be manually input, and yet that somehow doesn’t invalidate the need to track the data. Why is this very standard tracking for menstrual cycles so exceptionally different, aside from the fact that it’s only applicable to some women?
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne:
Right, which is why the following puzzled me:
She does go on to note:
“Standard” may not be the word she wants — maybe “basic” is? — but otherwise she makes sense.
scav
@different-church-lady: But it’s also just a bit of pea under the nut move the blame-can you find the blame-look! there’s no blame! passing. Some of this misguided fire could justifiably be due to Apple’s tendency to stand front and center under the lime-light when all is going well. It’s not exactly Look At This Great Third Party App our box runs! Or, if they really had such control over the specs that they deserve the spotlight, they can stand a little criticism over the specs as implemented. sin of omission, sin of commission, where exactly in the whole comperlicated production-legal-PR chain that resulted in a bendy box with an update roll-back and with an app with “interesting” design specs, we’ll hope they’re paying attention and figure the lessons they can glean. Their Maps improved at least.
Pogonip
@John Cole +0: Mine was quite irregular until after I had my baby, then became more predictable. One of the nicest things about menopause is I can wear white whenever I darn well feel like it.
Mnemosyne
@Cervantes:
I’m guessing it’s “revolutionary” because she’s young and doesn’t know about the technology that came before iPhones. It’s pretty revolutionary to be able to track everything digitally rather than having to make cryptic notes in your day planner.
Pogonip
Well, for me menstruation wasn’t “awful,” (those who have serious cramping will probably beg to differ) but it was messy, inconvenient, expensive, sometimes uncomfortable though never painful, and all in all I’m glad to be done with it.
Here’s something else 99.99999% of men didn’t know till now: when a number of women live together, as in a barracks or convent, their cycles will slowly shift around till they coincide and everyone’s menstruating together.
Samantha George
There’s already an app for that. It’s free (no ads either) and excellent.
Monthly Info
Okay, so it’s not an “app” app, but it’s great–you can set up several e-mail reminders. You can track, annotate, and download all sorts of things. I’ve used it since 2008, the woman who runs it operates on donations only.
SiubhanDuinne
@The Other Chuck:
Heh. Also, LOL.
SiubhanDuinne
@Pogonip:
OH NOEZ!! Not between Labor Day and Memorial Day!!
But yeah, seriously, my periods ranged from 10 days to 7 weeks. What you may call extremely irregular. I still have nightmares about the Easter Sunday when I was 14 or 15 years old and wearing a lovely new pale pink linen suit to church, when the floods came in the middle of “Christ the Lord is Ris’n Today.” (There’s no hidin’ place down there.) A few years later I started The Pill and everything got regular and predictable, but my teen years were a constant worry. Horribly irregular and the most God-awful cramps.*
*I know, TMI. Sorry.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne: She does seem young but, on the other hand, if she wants to call herself a science writer …
randy khan
@Villago Delenda Est: Really, all I was saying was that it was a fact that further reduced the likelihood that the idea would have occurred to him, as a way of pointing out the value of gender diversity. After all, there are at least two examples just on this thread of men who thought it worthwhile to track the cycles of their female significant others, and that’s two more examples than you’d have among all gay men.
randy khan
@Pogonip: The synchronizing cycles thing is a great example of hormonal influences. There are lots of other examples, of course, in other species, but I’m not sure of another one in people
Pogonip
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s white SHOES that are only to be worn in summer. White clothes can be worn whenever the weather permits (messy, muddy February is not a good time for white in these parts).
Hint: white velvet is super chic and very rarely seen because the Chinesr do not seem to make it in ready-to-wear. So grab yourself a pattern and a bolt of white velvet and make yourself a great outfit for special occasions. Regular velvet season is October thru March, panne is all-season.
Cervantes
@Pogonip:
Not known to be true; and looks as if it’s not true.
Here’s a look at the literature.
Pogonip
@SiubhanDuinne: Ah, yes. The dreaded tickly, trickly sensation, followed by the even more dreaded warm sploosh sensation when you sit down. Who among us has not been there? And waking up to find that while you were asleep, The Godfather came and took his horse head home, but neglected to clean up the bloody mess in the bed.
Boy am I glad to be done with that.
Pogonip
@Cervantes: Screw the literature. We women are here to tell you it’s true.
Mnemosyne
@Cervantes:
I’m afraid that you invited this over-share, but I have personally experienced this. I had not seen a (female) friend of mine for several months and we met up for a weekend. I got my period about 24 hours after arriving even though I was not due for another week, and my cycle was always like clockwork even before I was on the Pill.
In fact, that’s the confounding factor that I didn’t see mentioned in that article: using hormonal birth control regulates your cycle strongly enough that it would be tough for it to change even with an outside stimulus.
Origuy
@scav:
No, just that omitting the feature is not necessarily because of lack of diversity resulting in no one thinking of it. As has been pointed out, third-party apps already have this capability. Apple has never been reluctant to produce software that duplicates someone else’s, any more than Microsoft.
Mnemosyne
@Origuy:
Third-party apps can already do everything that the Health app does, so why even have the Health app at all?
And if your answer is, So you can have all of your health information in one place, why leave out the vitally important information about menstruation? Not everyone uses an inhaler or needs to monitor their blood sugar, but just about every teenager and pre-menopausal woman menstruates, and changes in menstruation can be important early warning signs of other health problems, like cancer.
Cervantes
@Pogonip:
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks.
[Comment beyond that seems unnecessary.]
scav
@Origuy: They choose to not include what seems to be baseline functionality desired by many, I’m not going to feel sorry they catch flak from same. The gut of the matter really has nothing really at all to do with it being an active choice or a whoops. omission or commission, they’re not looking quite as on the ball as they once did. If it was a pro-active design decision, actively considered, they probably should have foreseen this debate and had some materials ready to explain their considered design choice.
Mnemosyne
@Pogonip:
@Cervantes:
This is my totally unscientific theory, but I suspect it could also have something to do with the emotional closeness of the relationship, not just physical proximity, since the one time I remember it happening was with my best friend from college (who was also my matron of honor 15 years later). That’s not an easy thing for Science to measure objectively, though.
Another Holocene Human
@srv: Another genius at work who didn’t read the linked article. Congratulations.
Another Holocene Human
@The Other Chuck: +1