iPhone ResearchKit apps: The story behind Apple’s medical research | BGR

"One of the surprising announcements Apple made during its Spring Forward Apple Watch event concerned medical research. While regular consumers who aren’t specifically interested in this particular field might find it rather boring for now, the ResearchKit framework might prove to be a major step forward for the future of medicine. The open-source project, a rare thing from an all-controlling Apple, has been in the making for quite a long time and Fusion has learned more details about it from a source that’s more than familiar with Apple’s medicine ambitions.  ResearchKit basically lets doctors create special apps that use different key components of the iPhone, including the accelerometer, microphone and camera. Additionally, also smart wearable devices can be connected to the iPhone to track certain behaviors and activities needed for medical research. The first apps using the framework study heart disease, diabetes, asthma, breast cancer and Parkinson’s.  The publication reveals that Apple was already working on what ultimately became ResearchKit as far back as September 2013. Late that month during Standford’s MedX conference, the company talked about its medical ambitions with Dr. Stephen Friend, the founder of a nonprofit working on open science and data sharing who is now a medical technology advisor for Apple ..."