Will Apple's New HealthKit App for iOS 8 Succeed, or Will It Flop Like Google Health Did?

Last week at its Worldwide Developer's Conference Apple announced that they've been working on a new Health app for iOS 8. 

Although the exact features of the Health app and the HealthKit suite haven't been revealed yet, it is expected to be one of the most robust mobile health management tools ever released.

The app will be able to import information from a variety of other fitness and health apps to centralize essential vital statistics like heart rate, calories burned, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels, all within an intuitive modern dashboard.

All of the data tracked within the HealthKit app suite will be able to be sent directly to the user's healthcare provider through the Electronic Health Records (EHR) system, thereby facilitating real-time physician-patient monitoring.

For example, if a diabetic's blood pressure falls or spikes within a danger zone, a notification could be automatically sent to their doctor's office, prompting a quick checkup phone call.

Apple Working with the Mayo Clinic

Apple has apparently been collaborating with the Mayo Clinic on this project for the past five years. The iPhone maker has been working slowly on the HealthKit app to make sure every aspect is well thought out and practical.

In addition to providing HealthKit users with useful information, the app's ongoing communication with the Mayo Clinic and the healthcare community is expected to give doctors and researchers access to insightful consumer statistics that could aid in disease prevention and understanding.

However, recent reports seem to indicate that Apple could face some cultural difficulties in some medical communities, including appealing to the UK's NHS.

Still, even without support from every doctor's association in the world, backing from the Mayo Clinic alone is enough to impress and intrigue many would-be HealthKit downloaders.

Will Apple Health Experience the Same Fate as Google Health?

Back in 2011 Google launched its own health app that utterly failed to capture the interest of consumers. After the massive flop, bloggers and tech pundits around the web gave their opinions of the top reasons why Google Health was met with such limited enthusiasm.

First and foremost, Google's app didn't do anything to help users improve or simplify their health management, other than providing the very basic functionality of letting you import and track essential data.

It couldn't help you schedule appointments, communicate with your physician, save on prescriptions, or give you any other perks that would make it particularly appealing.

While we can't guarantee that the Apple Health app will include all of the aforementioned advantages, we can safely assume it will be a more comprehensive and integrated tool.

Furthermore, entering information into the Google Health app was a very cumbersome and tedious process that most consumers did not have the patience for.

On top of these shortcomings, Google didn't really market its Health app as aggressively as some of its other products and services like Google Places and Google Voice.

However, Apple's new Health app seems to be off to a much better start, with automatic data importing abilities, direct physician notifications through the EHR system, Mayo Clinic app support, and compatibility with other popular fitness apps.