New rumors yesterday suggested that Apple is getting ready to announce iOS 15 with new food tracking capabilities, likely built right into the Health app. That Health app already lets users collect all kinds of data, both automated and manual. The app can even pull data from apps like MyFitnessPal, but you can't add meals to it yourself. Yet.
If Apple does add support for proper food tracking to iOS 15's Health app it'll most obviously be Sherlocking MyFitnessPal, although the food app does have a presence on other platforms. But it's how Apple would approach it that is most interesting because MyFitnessPal has its problems. Problems that Apple could definitely fix.
As great as MyFitnessPal is, and as wonderful as people have found it when trying to keep proper tabs on their diet, it isn't a great app to use. It suffers from being cross-platform and doesn't feel like an iOS app one bit. It doesn't look great if we're being kind, and it's missing that little bit of Apple developer love that some other apps are full of. That's one area where Apple could definitely improve, especially if food tracking is built into the Health app as we're told it will be.
But Apple could also ruin the whole thing by being a bit too, well, Apple about it. By trying to reduce complexity it could ruin what makes MyFitnessPal so great – its huge database of foods and more data about just about anything than anyone could ever want to know. Apple is more likely to reduce the data in an attempt to make everything more accessible. And that's cool, so long as MyFitnessPal hangs around and can still access the same Health app hooks and whatnot that it can today.
As always, options are great. Apple adding food tracking to the Health app is a top-notch idea, but we probably need MyFitnessPal to hang around just a little while longer. Just in case Apple does us all wrong.
And that's assuming the recent rumors are accurate, of course!
