The application was populated with my movement data of the past week instantly. Instead of needing to use the application for a week to get sense if I like it, I could decide immediately.
Not implicitly available. That would mean the app does not ask for permission, which is described in the article. implicitly gathered however is a different story.
No, M7 is a coprocessor (according to Chipworks it's an NXP LPC18A1 which would be a customized LPC18xx chip), and it does handle the storage of the data it collects.
Interestingly, when the article started with this:
"The M7 processor contains all the hardware for tracking purposes."
I thought it was going to be a negative, but the end of the post was positive. I'm unsure how I feel about a chip that seems to be dedicated to tracking all that data from Day 1, what with all the surveillance talks lately...
But then, I remember that using a mobile phone is pretty inherently insecure anyway; carriers know where you are at pretty much any point, text messages are terribly easy to get for any LEO-type adversary, etc.
Still, the UX part of it is kind of neat, as are the benefits for battery life -- I do like the idea of low-power chips to handle tasks so the main application processor doesn't have to. I know a lot of phones actually have a dedicated co-processor for the Radio (which is what the radio firmware blobs run on), so it's not unprecedented.
I thought this was going to be another Apple = Big Brother piece too. Having read too many articles like that lately, I was surprised at the ending. The post title on here feels kind of ominous...
Author here, I agree. Title could have been better for sure, it's in the end more about the UX part and how Apple supports their developers delivering a better experience to the iOS users.
Probably, it stores the data on your phone somewhere. Probably is in your back-up as well? This should be somewhere in the docs. Don't have the time to look it up atm.
Apple openly highlights this to developers at the tech talks to encourage you to integrate it.
I'm very curious what bioanalytics apple is collecting via the M7 though. Are they testing to see how you use your device to better inform the creation of a bioaugmentation device like the iwatch?
As someone who has tried to design some augmentation software, getting an better informed persona about the user and transforming the UI to work based on car, train, bike, running would be an awesome future step.
Yes! That's what got me thinking as well. Apple briefly mentioned 'iOS in your car' when they announced iOS7 I believe. This will play a role. Tracking movement will become part of using a device. Think of surfacing information or starting background processes. Currently their Maps application switches view modes already. When you drive and park your car it switches to 'walking'. It would be great if there would be a way for developers to build in options and ask the user to 'start this app when I start driving'.
This also accounts for Touch ID. Currently it's just for unlocking your phone. And more people in a family could unlock a device without sharing a code. On a usability level this also provides options; for example when I unlock my phone with my left thumb, open e-mail instantly. It's might not be novel, perhaps it's done before. But it sounds useful to me.
The Core Motion APIs give you the following timestamps for activity: running, walking, completely still (phone on the table), and "unknown" (either fidgeting, or a few seconds before the chip realizes you're doing one of the other activities).
I was extremely disappointed by the noise given by the M7. To make use of the data it spits out, you need to apply filters to clean it up. There are better out of the box solutions for programmers. For example, https://www.alohar.com/developer/. Also, it is not as battery efficient as they promised. It is more battery efficient than the 3rd party offerings. However, I ran iOS 7 on my iPhone 5 for months and got better battery life running the same apps. Amazing since by that time the battery on the iPhone 5 was 1 year old.
> it is not as battery efficient as they promised ... got better battery life running the same apps
The point of the article is that the M7 is always active (even if you aren't running apps), so the battery usage of the M7 is baked into the phone itself. This means you can't compare the M7 to non-M7 because you'll actually be comparing the 5S to earlier phones, which have different processors/batteries/etc.
Not applying filters is precisely the right thing to do; it gives developers the most flexibility in interpreting the data. Filters by definition lose data, and can only be chosen with a specific use case in mind.
True. Crudely speaking, some applications might be interested in high-frequency jitter ("how bumpy is it here") and others might be interested in low-frequency overall paths ("where in your neighborhood did you go").
> I ran iOS 7 on my iPhone 5 for months and got better battery life running the same apps
I doubt most apps take advantage of the M7 yet. So if you run them on a 5S, they are going to be using battery, and the built-in logic is going to be using battery.
No, whether or not an app is using the APIs does not affect the battery. As this article states, and for my experience building fitly.io, the M7 is detecting at all times. The APIs only access the activity logs.
Thanks for posting the link to the video. Just checked. Don't see them mention the use of historical data when you first launch an app. Which was the case. My first use experience on Nike+ Move was better because I can already seeing it work based on a weeks data. Funny part was that they don't really acknowledge the fact they import the data. Argus, another application which I like for activity tracking, did the same.
The application was populated with my movement data of the past week instantly. Instead of needing to use the application for a week to get sense if I like it, I could decide immediately.