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This is the community forum for my apps Pythonista and Editorial.
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HealthKit access?
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What does it take to access Healtkit data from Pythonista? Is there some library available, or do I need to learn objc_util?
Thanks,
Georg -
I believe an app needs to be specifically authorized to use HealthKit in its info.plist. An app is supposed to be primarily health related, so I doubt pythonista would be allowed.
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That's really a pity. I had a look at the developer documentation and review guidelines for healthkit: Apple appears to have very high requirements for applications that use healthkit. Amongst these: The app needs to be dedicated to health, you need to have a compliant privacy policy, you must not export health data, etc. . On the one hand, I like this (since my data deserves privacy), on the other hand those limitations can sometimes be annoying...
Having said that: Applications such as Workflow allow to read and write healthkit data, there are even workflows that allow to export heath data, Workflow is not health specific, and there is nothing regarding health data in Workflow's privacy policy. Actually, I think that's quite OK since those workflows don't run automatically, and since the app needs to ask for permissions beforing reading or writing to HealthKit. But how is this different from what you can do in Pythonista? I wonder why Apple might see Workflow different from Pythonista.
As a consequence, to record some health data, I now have a Workflow workflow with a few dozen elements. The same could probably be done with 20 lines of Python in Pythonista, in a much more concise way.
Just wondering,
Georg -
I retired from the FDA a month ago to take a job in a 3D printing startup. I can say that Apple's conservative view is based on FDA's. If the application has any possibility of affecting how a patient gets treatment, its not health related and is considered a medical device, and therefore regulated. Apple is applying appropriate CYA. OMZ is probably already skating close to Apple's comfort zone so why wave another red flag at the bull. There's always swift and objective-C.
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@polymerchm said:
... OMZ is probably already skating close to Apple's comfort zone so why wave another red flag at the bull. There's always swift and objective-C.
You are probably right ....
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if Apple.is_playing(cya): Apple.a_part_of_cya.is_exposed = Workflow.can_access(HealthKit.personal_medical_data) if Workflow.can_access(HealthKit.personal_medical_data): why_not(Pythonista.can_access(HealthKit.personal_medical_data)) # Perhaps workflow could act as a shim to provide Pythonista indirect access to medical data
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The FDA is already dealing with citizen developers who are hacking medical devices not just to monitor, but to effect therapy. Even if Apple permitted it, the first patient illness/death would have people banging on Apple and OMZ's doors for enabling. Stay away. I like pythonista too much. OMZ would not look good in striped pajamas.
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@JonB I'm not sure how strict that is: the Workflow app can write data to HealthKit and that's not primarily a health related app.
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@stompertje I do not know how Workflow.is is doing it - I guess they are related to some important apple guys, maybe by bribe or simply if they do have a apple-design-award and are the poster-childs.
@omz do you have tried to submit it with health-kit-access?
by the way the Workflow.IS access is not complete - I want to access my sleep-log and this is not possible at the moment
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do you have tried to submit it with health-kit-access?
No, and I don't intend to do so. I have no idea how Workflow got through with this, as it's clearly not primarily health-focused, but I guess if you want to access Health data in Pythonista, you could do so by using Workflow's URL scheme.
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Any other way to do it besides using Workflow x-callback-url?
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It’s been a while since this thread was created. Have there been any updates in that time? Just being able to read “safe” data like weight and sleep would be very helpful.