With the release of iOS 10 this fall, Apple will update the stock Health app, which collects various data about the user’s health, on US-based iPhones with a option to sign up for organ donation.
Apple CEO Tim Cook told the Associated Press that he hopes this addition will assist in tackling a longstanding shortage of organ donors – a problem, he added, that became especially apparent to Apple when then CEO Steve Jobs faced an “excruciating” wait for a liver transplant in 2009.
Last year, a book called Becoming Steve Jobs – written by Rick Tetzeli and Brent Sclender, the latter an interviewer of Jobs on a number of occasions – reported that, during the wait, Cook offered his liver to an ill Jobs. Jobs was said to have replied: “No, I’ll never let you do that.” Jobs did receive a liver transplant later in 2009.
The Health app is preinstalled on all iPhones and iPod Touch models running iOS 8 or later, and can bring together data by syncing with a range of compatible health and fitness apps. The software has been omitted from iPads, though there is evidence that this could soon change.