IIRC many of the period tracking apps sold their user's data. Seems like a good reason for Apple to introduce a version which uses the OS level features to keep data synced and in the user's hands.
Apple also got a lot of flak for not including a menstrual cycle tracker in their Health app. It was a popular sign of Silicon Valley’s male bias for a while. To wit:
> Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, Apple’s first diversity report did show that the company is mostly white and male. So it’s likely that menstrual cycles just aren’t a concern for a majority of the company’s employees. But that shouldn't be an excuse.
> But considering that plenty of other, extremely popular apps for menstrual tracking already exist (Clue and Period Tracker are two stand-outs), all we have to say is, thanks for finally including women in your world, Apple. Welcome to ours.
> That Apple overlooked period tracking as a key function that roughly half the population would expect to see included in a comprehensive health tracking app is not entirely a surprise.
> Apple today is a company where only 30 percent of its employees are female, and only 20 percent of those in engineering positions are female.
I don't get this. As an Android user, Google routinely leaves out features I'd like in their apps. I just use an alternative app. Sometimes it's very annoying because I want all the things on the same platform. But again, usually there's an alternative app I can use. Why not just use a different app? I mean, I get wanting everything in one app, but these quotes are a lot less "I wish my favorite app had this useful feature" and a lot more on the outrage side, which makes no sense considering the amount of features useful to 100% of the population that Apple continues to leave out.
>Apple notoriously ignored women's health issues as it developed previous versions of Health
Issues? Plural? Beyond menstruation tracking, what else is missing? Or is this just another example of story padding?
I guess I just don't understand why this is any different from any other missing feature from any app. Why is it apples responsibility to provide this feature?
I could argue it's their responsibility because one of Apple's focuses as a company is health/health care.
As a Pebble watch user who moved to an Apple Watch (after Pebble got bought out by Fitbit in 2017), I was amazed they didn't have any sleep tracking functionality. It's not a make or break feature, but as someone with a history of sleeping issue's, I really valued Pebble's tracking feature. If Apple is going to continue pushing Apple devices as the place to go for tracking and managing your health information, they will be seen as responsible for adding features users want.
What bait? I just quoted what other people said. Once upon a time, the Washington Post thought that Apple was notorious for ignoring women’s health issues because they didn’t include a cycle tracker. Now it thinks Apple is anti-competitive for including one. Like I said, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.
>Apple today is a company where only 30 percent of its employees are female, and only 20 percent of those in engineering positions are female.
It's not like product decisions at most tech companies are made by engineers, and they're especially not made by engineers at a large one like Apple.
Who wants to bet that the split for those who were responsible for making the product decision regarding Health and menstrual cycle tracking approached 50/50? I'd also bet that the idea was repeatedly brought up (by people including male engineers) and then shot down (by non-engineers) for various reasons.
So Apple wants to curate an app store and demand a 30% cut, but they don't keep trash apps like you describe from sharing data. Then they get to play good guy and make their own app?
How is that not absolutely abusive? They abuse users by effectively lying about the quality of apps in the store, they abuse app creators by changing the rules to suit their whims, and they abuse their position as a monopolist over iPhone software to keep any real competition from sticking around.
The guiding principle in the Apple world goes something like this: If your entire app is really just a feature that should exist in a 1st party app, Apple will probably implement it eventually.
The iPhone comes with a 1st party email app, but many people prefer 3rd party apps. Same for calculators, weather apps, podcast players, music players, password managers, calendar apps, etc. In another comment in this thread, I linked to several articles that were critical of Apple for not including a menstrual cycle tracker in their Health app. Some 3rd party apps filled the gap for a while, but it seems like it was really a feature that lots of people wanted in the 1st party app. You can call it abusive if you want, but others might say that Apple was answering the needs of its customers. If the 3rd party apps provide better functionality (as they often do... see the examples I listed above), people will continue using them.
