HealthKit as a Model for an Open Semantic Index From Apple

Here’s an update I just appended to my post yesterday, after linking to Gus Mueller’s suggestion that Apple open up a semantic index to third-party AI apps:

HealthKit already works a lot like what Mueller is suggesting here (for, say, “SemanticKit”). With explicit user permission — that can be revoked at any time — third party apps can both read from and write to your Health data. Apple does a lot of that itself, both through Apple Watch and from the various activity-related things an iPhone can track, but third-party apps and devices are welcome participants, in a private, easily-understood way.

Nobody is suggesting Apple should give up on AI. Quite the opposite. They really need to go from being a joke to being good at it, fast. But there’s no reason at all they should build out a strategy that relies on Apple doing all of it themselves, and Apple users relying solely on Apple’s own AI. Do it like Health — a model that has proven to be:

  • profitable (for Apple itself, selling devices like Watches);
  • popular (with users, who actually use it, understand it, and like it);
  • private;
  • and open to third-party developers, device makers, and medical service providers.

(Thanks to Bill Welense for the suggestion.)

★ Thursday, 20 March 2025