14 DAY TRIAL // An Australian startup named HealthKit that “brings together practitioners, patients and people everywhere to make health efficient, effective and accessible all over the world” claims Apple stole their product.
On Monday, June 2, Apple announced HealthKit, a new product that allows apps that provide health and fitness services to share their data with the new Health app in iOS 8.
The tool allows for a user’s health information to be stored in a centralized and secure location on the device. Australia’s HealthKit offers many of the same benefits, according to company co-founder Alison Hardacre.
She tells MailOnline that “They have used our name and launched a new product called HealthKit,” adding “We won't let them trample over our product ... someone needs to be fired for this.”
“We have a business with the same name and a similar product, if they had done a quick Google search they [Apple] would have seen that. It's not fair. We knew Apple were going into health but didn't expect this,” she said.
In a blog post, the company relayed to its users that while it was flattered that Apple considered using their name, it still doesn’t feel they did the right thing.
“HealthKit is already in use, by us! Even the way they write it is the same as us. I'm flattered that they like our name so much and that it's a ringing endorsement for our market opportunity (which we already knew). However, as an Apple fan, I feel let down,” said Mrs. Hardacre.
“They didn't feel that they had to do a quick domain search - it would have taken 5 seconds to type www.healthkit.com into their browser and discover us. Would it have made any difference to them? Are they so big that they are above doing an ordinary Google search?” she added.
HealthKit is actually a developer tool, an Application Programming Interface, or API for short. Apple may have not felt compelled to ask for permission to use the name because it doesn’t plan to market HealthKit as a product. The actual product behind HealthKit is the Health app in iOS 8. That’s what the user sees, and that’s what Apple plans to market as its health & fitness product.
However, considering the big fuss they’re making about HealthKit over at developer.apple.com and considering the stage time HealthKit got as a demo at WWDC, it’s certainly not the way to go about it. Australia’s HealthKit deserves, at the very least, an explanation from the Cupertino titan.