Fitbit shuns Apple's HealthKit

Health app
There'll be no Apple a day for Fitbit fans

Apple's Health app promises to be a one-stop-shop for all your health and fitness data on Apple devices.

With its HealthKit tool, third party app developers can integrate and share their data with it, theoretically meaning that whatever fitness trackers or apps you use you'll be able to see the data from all of them on one handy screen.

As the various apps can see the data too, they can also leverage data from one another to become more useful.

But it looks like Fitbit might be throwing a spanner in the works as it has confirmed on its forums that "We do not currently have any plans to integrate with HealthKit."

Never say never

Now, it doesn't sound like the company has totally ruled it out, as the post goes on to say "It is an interesting new platform and we will watch as it matures, looking for opportunities to improve the Fitbit experience. At the moment, we're working on other exciting projects that we think will be valuable to users."

It finishes by asking users what form they would want to see its HealthKit integration take and assures them that it's listening to their responses.

So we may yet see Fitbit integration in the future, but for now one of the biggest fitness tracking companies on the planet is opting out.

Unsurprisingly this response hasn't been met with much enthusiasm in the forums and it's hard to see how this can be a good move for Fitbit. Apple probably isn't thrilled by the decision either, but we doubt Tim Cook will be losing too much sleep over it, especially with the fitness-tracking Apple Watch fast approaching.

James Rogerson

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.

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