Apple HealthKit Update: Now Featuring Period Tracking and Sexual Activity, Which Experts Claim are Useless

Apple addresses women's health with the new updates in the latest iOS 9 HealthKit app, which can now track the menstrual cycle and other factors in the female reproductive health.

Apple will include a period tracking app in the iPhone as announced during the Worldwide Developers Conference Keynote, which kicked off June 8 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. According to TechCrunch, Apple's SVP of Software Engineer Craig Federighi said that there will be a series of updates to the HealthKit platform, including keeping track of the user's UV exposure, water intake, and even the sedentary state that the user is in.

MedicalDaily reports that the new features in Apple's HealthKit app will help women track their sexual activity. Before, it can keep track of the user's blood sugar, weight, and even the steps. Now, reports claim that it can log data on how, when and how often does the user have sex. It can also keep track of the date and time when the user had sex. It will keep track if you used protection. The user can choose to share the information to their doctors, to research, or to other apps.

Yahoo news, however, reports that experts believe that this tracking feature has little value for the user's health. The new features added to the HealthKit app become useful only if it is integrated with other measures, like the user's last menstrual period. According to Dr. Elizabeth Kavaler of Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, keeping track of your sexual activity is not very useful, unless people feel good or bad about themselves. It is just a narcissistic and self-satisfying app, the specialist in female urology said.

Apple released this additional feature to address issues that the company was ignoring women's health. Tracking women's menstrual cycle is one of the best idea they could come up with, especially that this method has been done for thousands of years.