Apple Health overwalking alerts

I’m back from a week and a half long vacation. It was a blast (though the jet lag is proving to be brutal). We spent time in Japan, specifically in Tokyo, Hakone, and Kyoto, but I’m not going to bore you with the details because that’s not why you’re here.

Instead of sitting in an office hunched over a computer all day, every day, we slept, ate, explored, and relaxed. We also walked a lot. Around day 5 or 6 my feet started getting blisters, and I ended up switching from Vans to these super comfortable Japanese flip-flop type things. The brand is called Suicoke for those who are interested.

As I tried to keep my weight off my blisters, I started thinking… what if there was a way to prevent this (which I assume would involve walking less)? What if Apple Health told you when you were walking too much and might wind up with blisters?

Blisters are hard to quantify. They depend on shoes, gait, terrain, and a million other factors. Suffice it to say, I doubt there’s an easy way to programmatically detect when you’d get blisters without pretty invasive monitoring or deeply intelligent, personalized technology. Also, this runs fully counter to Apple Health’s goal (increase activity, boost overall health). That said, I don’t think this will get built.

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