Hands-On Apple 216 transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
Mikah Sargent [00:00:00]:
Coming up on Hands on Apple, it is time to audit what apps are accessing your health data. Stay tuned. Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is Twit. Hello and welcome to Hands on Apple. I am Micah Sargent and today, look, I've heard the news about someone using ChatGPT with the new health functionality where, yes, it is now possible to share your information with ChatGPT direct from your Apple health app. There are probably, there's a good chance that there are loads of apps right now that have access to your health data and it's time to take a look at that and make changes if you need to. So how do you go about doing that? Well, let's head over to iOS and take a look.
Mikah Sargent [00:00:59]:
All right, here we are on iOS and as you might imagine, the first thing we need to do is open the health app. When you open the health app, you will see probably your summary and up at the top is a photograph of your name or it's a photograph of you and you will tap on that. Now, I'm going to switch screens for a moment because there is, you know, personal health data that will show up, but when you're on this screen, up will pop a list of options. And what you want to do is scroll down to privacy and choose Apps. Here you can see all of the apps that over time have asked to gain access to your health data. And here you can see what apps are doing, what, what they are, what they are reading, what they are sending, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So let's take a look at some of the options. Let's go with one that actually comes from Apple itself, the Fitness app.
Mikah Sargent [00:01:52]:
When you tap on the Fitness app, it's going to take a moment to load because it's probably the case that over the course of time, much data is added from an app. Now, in this case, you can see that the only data that is shared from the fitness app is activity data called Workout Effort score. And you can look back and see that on August 1st at 11:15am I logged a 6 for workout effort and at 2pm I logged a 9 for workout effort. Now here you can choose to delete the data from Fitness. This is a first party app. Things are a little bit different when it comes to a third party app. So let's go to the app eight Sleep. Eight Sleep has been a sponsor on the show in the past.
Mikah Sargent [00:02:37]:
And so I do have an eight sleep mattress cover. And with that I can see the data that 8 Sleep is writing and reading from my health information so I can see that eight Sleep is able to the app itself is able to add data to the health app for my heart rate, for my respiratory rate and for my sleep. Those are currently all turned on, meaning that each of those can be shared from the from the eight Sleep app to the health app. Then you need to check the read option. These are the bits of data that you have allowed for eight Sleep the app to be able to read and understand. You can choose turn on all at the top to just go ahead and sort of lock it in blink it option of hey, I want all of that data shared but you can go piecemeal so I can say yes, I'm okay with blood oxygen being shared. But you know, I don't really think that 8 Sleep needs to know what my blood type is. I don't think it needs to know what my cardio fitness is.
Mikah Sargent [00:03:40]:
I don't think that it needs to know my dietary information or what my actual ECGs look like. Maybe I don't need it to know what fiber I'm taking in or my menstruation, if that were applicable, how much protein I'm eating, the sodium intake that I have, what my swimming is. You can see that I have gone through kind of piece by piece and made choices based on what I feel 8 Sleep should have access to. And here's the cool thing about in particular making choices on sharing health data. A lot of times you'll find that these third party apps are able to function just fine without you needing to hit that turn on all button. And that's really handy, right? Because there's not necessarily a reason for it to have access to some of this. I think it's okay for it to know how much water I'm taking in, but it doesn't need to know wheelchair data because I am not in a wheelchair chair. It doesn't need to know my workout routes because it I don't need it to have that location information.
Mikah Sargent [00:04:36]:
But maybe I'm okay with it having some information about the food that I'm taking in because I feel that that would give it some insights into how food is. My diet is impacting my sleep so I would go through and turn those on and be able to kind of set those forward, but the rest of it don't need to. In this screen you can also see the data that has actually been sent from eight Sleep and logged into the health app. So I can see that it is shared some heart rate, it shared sleep, it shared my respiratory rate and also vitals. And at any point you can go through and delete individual bits of data or all of them. This episode of Hands on Apple is brought to you by Threat Locker. Ransomware is harming businesses worldwide, but ThreatLocker can stop it before it starts. Recent analysis from Threat locker shows how one ransomware operation Quillen surged from 45 incidents in 2022 to more than 800 in 2025.
Mikah Sargent [00:05:35]:
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Mikah Sargent [00:06:33]:
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Mikah Sargent [00:07:51]:
And you'll note that I do have sleep turned off in this case. If I tap on the data from Carb Manager, I can see we'll wait for it to load the data that it's shared over time. So, total fat intake, dietary cholesterol intake. Wow. On June 24th, I logged 180 milligrams of cholesterol by way of natural ground turkey. I was eating a lot of ground turkey when I was doing the keto diet a long time ago. So that is a quick look at how you can see what data has been shared but also make changes to it. So at any point, again, going in here and choosing to remove them, very easy to do.
Mikah Sargent [00:08:33]:
And you will also notice that there are going to be apps listed here that are apps that are not currently on the device but have at some point posted data to the health app. So I can see that at one point I allowed the Calm app, for example, to track my data. And in this case there is no more information left from it, but I'm trying to see if there's one that still has data where I deleted it and I kept the data from it. So in this case, it's not looking like there are any examples of that, but going in and seeing what data has come from those apps is a possibility as well. Ahoy there, Micah. Here. If you haven't done so yet, now is your last chance to take the 2026 TWiT audience survey. We of course appreciate the feedback we've received.
Mikah Sargent [00:09:21]:
Thus, if you haven't yet done it, well, you still have time. Now's the time. Head to TWiT TV Survey 26 today. It closes January 31st. So run, don't walk. Thanks so much. The single most important thing when it comes to this is just looking through that apps list and making sure that you did indeed select the data that you wanted to choose to share with those apps or not share with those apps, and that you are not currently sharing data that you don't want to share. So it's just a great place to go to regularly check and gay and go.
Mikah Sargent [00:09:56]:
Okay, look, I don't actually want that data there anymore. Not at all. And in some cases you realize, like I did, oh, I'm okay with it having that data and more. So let's go through and say, you know, in this case, this app, it makes sense for it to have more information about my fiber. So I just encourage everyone to check that out. You can now do it on iPhone or iPad. I Both of those places are a way to go ahead and get in there and audit what apps are using your data and our logging data in the health app. As always, I thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Hands on Apple.
Mikah Sargent [00:10:32]:
I'll be back again next week with more for you, but until then, it is time to say goodbye.
