HealthKit Data

Kyle Gray
2 min readSep 29, 2016

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There’s an annoying issue on iOS.

iOS is strange in how it handles data. You’re encouraged to keep an iTunes or iCloud backup, and use that to transfer over from device to device for years.

Health data is the weird issue here.

Personally, I’ve had many encounters with Apple Support whenever I encounter a software bug or crash error. The first step always seems to be: restore your iPhone. Music problems? Restore your iPhone. Battery issues? Restore your iPhone.

And I would love to restore my phone and start with a clear iOS install.

Except I also want to keep my Health data.

The only (Apple) way to transfer over to a new device or new install of iOS while simultaneously keeping my Activity and Health data is to restore from a backup. And it seems like that is also what is causing my issues with iOS.

There needs to be a way to transfer and store HealthKit data without bringing over all the other iOS cruft I’ve gathered over the years.

And so I’ve filed a radar. Which turns out to be a duplicate of a radar that originated just a month after iOS 8, and therefore HealthKit, was released.

If you want to help, or if you’ve ever been in the situation where, like every, single, other, fitness, platform, you want to sync your data over to a new device seamlessly, this is where you can help.

  1. Sign in to bugreport.apple.com
  2. Open a new issue
  3. Select iOS as the product, then HealthKit/Activity
  4. Either copy or summarize my radar here http://www.openradar.me/radar?id=5524165746491392
  5. Submit the problem.

I am not sure how much including the original radar number (15339171) would help this, but if you want to include that as well that would rock.

I really just want to be able to transfer health data independently, and not worry about corrupt data, a crap iOS install, or other issues I can’t fix without a complete wipe. Being able to export your health data from the Health app, but not being able to transfer it either through iCloud or even get it on a new device is ridiculous, and should be changed.

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Kyle Gray
Kyle Gray

Written by Kyle Gray

Technology enthusiast. Often sarcastic.

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