As we (well, me on the train) sat there watching the event, they kicked off by announcing the ResearchKit. We initially thought okay, so Apple are now trying to lead the way in the health and research market but we were pleasantly surprised when they did something they don't normally do. Made it open source. Fantastic news. This announcement really opens up the capabilities for the research studies to gain better and more detailed data quickly and more efficiently.

We attended a Mobile Apps in Research Summit last year at the University of Birmingham. There we covered topics such as evaluating your app in the real world and designing data gathering apps. With the latter in mind, Apple have certainly given the summit food for thought making the ResearchKit available to everyone. We imagine this year’s summit discussion on data gathering apps will be very different to last year.

Apple have clearly been working with a number of universities to get the ResearchKit off the ground, launching studies on asthma, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease which is fantastic. The UK seems to be a bit behind with utilising mobile apps for the health sector. At IE, we've been working on a number of projects including a health sector app and an online mobile community app for 16-24 year olds who have, or have had, cancer.

Interested in discussing app development with us? Contact our team, we’d love to hear from you.