Thursday, October 9, 2014

Software : Fitbit shuns Apple's HealthKit

Software : Fitbit shuns Apple's HealthKit

Fitbit shuns Apple's HealthKit

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Fitbit shuns Apple's HealthKit

Apple's Health app promises to be a one-stop-shop for all your health and fitness data on Apple devices.

With its HealthKit tool, third party app developers can integrate and share their data with it, theoretically meaning that whatever fitness trackers or apps you use you'll be able to see the data from all of them on one handy screen.

As the various apps can see the data too, they can also leverage data from one another to become more useful.

But it looks like Fitbit might be throwing a spanner in the works as it has confirmed on its forums that "We do not currently have any plans to integrate with HealthKit."

Never say never

Now, it doesn't sound like the company has totally ruled it out, as the post goes on to say "It is an interesting new platform and we will watch as it matures, looking for opportunities to improve the Fitbit experience. At the moment, we're working on other exciting projects that we think will be valuable to users."

It finishes by asking users what form they would want to see its HealthKit integration take and assures them that it's listening to their responses.

So we may yet see Fitbit integration in the future, but for now one of the biggest fitness tracking companies on the planet is opting out.

Unsurprisingly this response hasn't been met with much enthusiasm in the forums and it's hard to see how this can be a good move for Fitbit. Apple probably isn't thrilled by the decision either, but we doubt Tim Cook will be losing too much sleep over it, especially with the fitness-tracking Apple Watch fast approaching.

The latest Chromecast update adds more features for iOS users

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The latest Chromecast update adds more features for iOS users

Google has updated the Chromecast app for iOS with the "Backdrop" feature, which gives users more control over what appears on their screens.

Backdrop kicks in whenever Chromecast isn't casting something specific, and now iOS users can use it to take the HDMI stick's idle screen beyond the current time and featured photos.

Yes, Backdrop is about as exciting a feature as the name suggests - it's essentially a glorified screen saver.

Getting crazy

Now Chromecast users with the iOS app can choose to have the streaming dongle display photos pulled directly from their Google+ accounts, satellite images of Earth and space, or art from featured museums.

You can also display the weather and current news headlines if you want to go really nuts.

There are some settings to tweak, like what kinds of headlines are display and exactly where it pulls images from.

But more importantly the iOS app connects directly with Backdrop, letting you follow up on content displayed on your TV - including headlines and photos - directly within the Chromecast app.

Microsoft updates OneDrive iOS app with TouchID and iPhone 6 features

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Microsoft updates OneDrive iOS app with TouchID and iPhone 6 features

Microsoft is committed to the cloud, and its latest way of showing it is an update to the OneDrive iOS app.

The update adds new security features to OneDrive for iOS, including TouchID support and the option for PIN security.

Now iOS OneDrive users can lock their cloud storage behind either a PIN password or their own fingerprints.

The latest version of OneDrive for iOS also has improved iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus compatibility to take advantage of the new iPhones' bigger screens, and the new ability to sort your files in the app.

OneDrive to bind them

Microsoft updated the Android OneDrive app in early October as well, but the Windows Phone version appears to be lagging behind for some reason.

"For all our Windows Phone customers: stay tuned, updates are coming your way soon, too!" Microsoft OneDrive Group Program Manager Jason Moore wrote in a blog post.

It's unclear exactly what's coming in that update, but it definitely won't be TouchID support.
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