
Apple promised an expansive health app, so why can't women track menstruation? - calvin_c
http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/25/6844021/apple-promised-an-expansive-health-app-so-why-cant-i-track
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espadrine
While I (just like the vast majority of readers of this comment) am not
menstruating myself, the small sample of my three sisters (and, as it were,
many of their friends) seem to indicate that yes, tracking that information is
more relevant to half of the human population than any other health metric is
for men.

If the question is "Why is there no menstruation tracker", the answer (really,
the elephant in the room) is somewhere here:
[http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/](http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/).

Of course, the unreleased data about gender diversity amongst Apple engineers,
which we will hopefully get within two years by emulation thanks to Google's
own interest in the problem, can easily be guessed as well.

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fataliss
I guess the answer is pretty simple, they didn't want to have a slice of the
app that would be irrelevant for half of their customers. Of course most
people won't use the dozen features of the app anyway, but they could/might
regardless of their sex/age/race/ etc. Introducing a sex specific feature
makes a distinction. Maybe they could have done it so you'd chose for the male
or female version of the health app or something like that, not saying that
doing it well was impossible but it would require focus and dedication for
this particular problem. Maybe we will see it coming in the future, who knows?
But it was certainly not their focus at the release!

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sequoia
"...irrelevant for half of their customers..."

To clarify: this is the same Apple that put a U2 album on everyone's iPhone?
Tell me again about how they don't want to include something that's irrelevant
for half their customers.

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awendt
Yes, this. Excellent point.

Also: This is the same Apple that put the Stocks app on everyone's iPhone.

~~~
fataliss
I think you are missing the point here. The health app itself won't get
interest from 100% of their iPhone users either. I'm assuming they simply
didn't want to introduce a gender specific function in their app that would
fragment more the users of that app. If you take the number of iPhone owners,
who would have an interest in the Health app and then you cut again to get
only the women who would be interested in tracking their periods inside their
phone, I think you look at a fraction of their users. Not that those users
would be any less valuable or anything but they probably didn't represent a
demographic big enough to justify a dedicated feature. Especially since they
would probably still use the app anyway for all the other features it
proposes.

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cmdrfred
What are you talking about this his been a feature on most phones since day
one. I think they call it "calendar".

Also it's sexist to assume only women want to track menstruation isn't it?

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collyw
I saw a web app aimed at guys for tracking menstruation a few years ago
(before mobile was popular). The site implied that it would help guys know
when their partner was mood was likely to change.

The site's comments section was full of very angry women, hating on the sites
creators and any men that might want to track their partners cycle.

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michaelsbradley
The app _could_ also be very helpful as an NFP-related tracker, e.g. per the
Billings Ovulation Method:

[http://www.thebillingsovulationmethod.org](http://www.thebillingsovulationmethod.org)

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serve_yay
Is Apple the only one who makes a health app that doesn't do this?

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nocgzh
do engineers at Apple know what menstruation is?

~~~
zyan
No

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classicsnoot
HN's inability to handle the OP is adorable.

Using all of the same logic from the article, why is there no Poop Tracker? In
fact, not only is it the most diverse, easiest to understand health indicator
from the human body, but it is the same for all humans. It is The diagnostic
report on literally everything you do.

The period tracker is a no brainer, but a poop tracker might actually make
your life better. I think, though, that most people want a flashy looking
chart and a conversational set piece. Health Care is treated more like an
insurance policy and lesss like an habitual practice.

~~~
hiokle
Most people aren't likely to shit themselves without a poop tracker, but most
women keep track of their periods to keep from ending up with blood on their
pants. Out of all this obnoxious quantified self stuff, this is the only thing
I would actually use.

~~~
classicsnoot
you miss the point; tracking your shit is not a way to avoid public
embarrassment or hours in a sink [lads get blood on our clothes to, though
some not as frequently as others].

tracking digestive data [doota?log log?] is a way to avoid the doctor's office
and the emergency room, make informed decisions about diet on a progressive,
as opposed to resolution, basis.

Hunters, medical forensic researchers, detectives, your mom; all of these
professionals know that poop is a massive data dump of valuable info.

