Apple Releases Medical Research Software Framework

ResearchKit, Apple's software framework intended to turn smartphones and tablets into medical research tools, was on Tuesday made available to developers and researchers. Apple unveiled the open-source framework during an event last month, showing how researchers can design apps that regularly survey users or use the sensors in smartphones and tablets to gather data about breast cancer, diabetes and other diseases. Cornell and Stanford Universities, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Universities of Pennsylvania, Oxford and Rochester are among the first institutions to develop apps using ResearchKit.