Vitals: A nice compliment to Gentler Streaks

Apple had its WWDC kick off yesterday introducing a lot of new and exciting things that will be available this Fall across their OS’s. I’m on the iOS 18, ipadOS 18, and watchOS 11 betas and one thing that got my attention is something you will be able to find in the Health app. It’s called Vitals.

Vitals is a collection of measurements that the Apple Watch collects while you are asleep. Measurements include…

Heart Rate

Respiratory Rate

Wrist Temperature

Blood Oxygen

Sleep Duration

The thing I like about this feature is the manner in which it is presented on the iPhone and Apple Watch. The presentation comes in the form of a simple graph widget that lets you know if the measurements fall within a “Typical” mode, “High,” or “Low.”

When a measurement is “out of range,” Vitals will send you an “outlier” notification to review. These notifications can prove to be a helpful moment of reflection as it relates to changes in your life, leading one to make decisions as to what her/his next steps could be.

I have read and heard that the Vitals feature might “Sherlock” apps like Gentler Streak; an app that collects similar metrics. I’m not so sure Gentler Streak needs to be worried though. It provides the user with so much more than what some are fearing could “Sherlock” the app. I for one mainly use Gentler Streaks to provide me with status on my Activity Path. I think that, when put next to each other (like I have done on with widgets on my iPhone) that Gentler Streaks and Vitals compliment each other nicely