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Health & Fitness in Windows 8.1!

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Finally today, we’ve started talking more about Windows 8.1 and shared a preview version at the Build conference in San Francisco. There are a ton of changes squeezed into this drop --- amongst other things, I have to admit that as an old man somewhat set in my ways, I’m looking forward to the return of the Start button, even if it’s not quite the Start button.

But for us here on the HealthVault team, what’s reaaaally exciting about this release is that it will include a brand new Health & Fitness app written by the Bing team. They've done a great job, creating an app that includes both rich content (like a graphical symptom checker) and useful tools to help keep track of your diet, weight, blood pressure, immunizations and more. And of course --- those trackers connect to HealthVault, so they can be automatically updated with data from any of our scores of linked devices. Same goes for any other relevant data in your HealthVault record --- it’ll just automatically be there when you make the connection.

Perhaps even better, the information goes both ways --- so it’s easy to share with healthcare providers or family members, include it as part of an emergency profile, or use it to drive other experiences like Heart360 and iTriage (not to mention our own mobile apps on Windows, Windows Phone and the iPhone).

I think my favorite part is the diet tracker --- they’ve integrated with the FatSecret food database and really made it easy to find stuff you eat and get it recorded with a minimum of hassle. Check out Brian’s blog post for the full scoop on all the great stuff they’ve packed into this app (and Food & Drink, the other newcomer app for 8.1). 

I’m really excited that the Windows team recognized just how important being healthy and active is to all of us, and included Health & Fitness as a “first class” app in the new release. We’ll be making a few tweaks to the HV connectivity before General Availability of 8.1 later this year, and that will just make it even better. Can’t wait to see this app make a difference in the lives of real folks.

HealthVault in every Windows box. YIPPEE!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 26, 2013
    Great

  • Anonymous
    June 27, 2013
    Will we getting this app for windows phone, as that's what I carry with me day to day.

  • Anonymous
    June 27, 2013
    Nathan, both the Bing and HealthVault teams are looking at how to go deeper on Windows Phone too ... not sure exactly what timing will look like or what form that collaboration will take --- but I will be sure to shout about it when we know!

  • Anonymous
    July 08, 2013
    Hi Sean, I've just installed Windows 8.1 but I'm not able to sync my HV to the app. The content I added yesterday (in HV) are not available in the Health & Fitness app. (By the way, I've already connected my HV to my MS account) I also cannot add content in the app (Health & Fitness)and then sync it. Can you fix this?

  • Anonymous
    July 08, 2013
    Virin, sorry you're having trouble with it! Best route to a solution is to get in touch with our support team; info for doing that is here: support.microsoft.com/.../15242. Thanks!