Apple announces ResearchKit to put iPhones to work for medicine

Apple says it wants the iPhone and HealthKit to be used for medical research. So it has launched a new platform called ResearchKit.

Using the platform, medical researchers can easily access the massive amounts of data being collected from health devices and apps by Apple’s HealthKit platform.

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Apple’s Jeff Williams, who manages the HealthKit project, says the big problem with medical research is not having enough data, or the right types of data, or the right frequency of data (like times of low blood sugar, etc.).

Williams said Apple worked with a number of big name medical learning facilities like Stanford, Oxford, University of Rochester, and others to develop the platform and the new research apps.

One app, mPower, is an app for Parkinson’s research that analyzes data from all over the world.

Apple adds that it will make the new platform open source, so anybody can add data to it, and use it to create apps.

The first five apps developed using ResearchKit are available today.