7 Cool Things the New iPhone Health App Can Do

— -- intro: Attention Apple-lovers and stat-tracking fanatics: Apple has unveiled the long-awaited iPhone 6, and with it comes a new app called Health, which marks the company’s first foray into gathering and organizing your health data.

Health will allow you to input basic information like birth date, will record certain data on its own, and can collect statistics from third-party fitness devices and apps like Nike+ including footsteps, heart rate, and sleep activity. (And yes, you can control which of your apps sync with Health.)

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The iPhone 6 will be available on September 19, but you don’t need to buy a new phone to try the app. The new devices run on the revamped iOS 8 operating system, which will also be available for download on older devices on Wednesday, September 17.

Here, the coolest features in the new app.

quicklist: 1category: iPhone Health App's Coolest Featurestitle: Health data at a glanceurl:text: The app’s Dashboard presents your essential data as cards that you can flip through to view at a glance. All told, the Health app sorts and organizes your health information (whether collected internally or via a supported app or device) across categories including fitness, nutrition, lab results, medications, sleep, and vitals. This streamlines your flow of health and fitness data and, most importantly, helps you make sense of it all.

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quicklist: 2category: iPhone Health App's Coolest Featurestitle: Emergency contact cardsurl:text: The Medical ID feature allows you to store critical information—say, blood type or food allergies—to create an emergency card that’s accessible from your device’s Lock screen. First responders or good Samaritans will be able to call the emergency contacts listed in Medical ID.

quicklist: 3category: iPhone Health App's Coolest Featurestitle: Built-in step counterurl:text: The Health app can access your device’s motion processor (available in the iPhone 5s, iPad Air, and the iPad mini with Retina display and in the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus), which enables the device to measure steps taken (and whether you’re walking or running) all on its own—no fitness tracker necessary. The Steps section of the app then tallies the number of steps you take, allowing you to sort by day, week, month, or year. Plus, you can view your log in terms of the number of steps taken or as actual distance traveled, and Steps data can also be shared with other apps.

quicklist: 4category: iPhone Health App's Coolest Featurestitle: Tracking for coffee junkiesurl:text: The app’s Nutrition section features a Caffeine tab to help you track how much you consume from a variety of sources (coffee, tea, soda, and more). You’ll have to enter it manually unless you use third-party apps like UP Coffee from Jawbone, which can help you understand how caffeine influences your sleep and other aspects of your life.

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