With disease and ill-health a hot topic currently and winter quickly approaching it’s perhaps unsurprising to see Sickweather (present on iOS since last November) finally make the jump to Android. Described by CEO Graham Dodge as “Waze for sickness” the app aims to let users know when they’re entering areas with high illness levels by trawling public Facebook and twitter feeds to plot on a map the location and type of illness. Using crowdsourcing similar to Waze, Sickweather will alert a user of their proximity to an illness, allowing said user to either avoid this area, or at least proceed with caution.
People can also track their own illnesses by checking-in their symptoms at a specific location (which will be anonymously mapped for their community to be alerted). Currently boasting over “2,000,000 reports each month” it goes without saying that Sickweather has proved successful thus far. Although many may dismiss this sort of app as unnecessary there is certainly a market for it, especially for those especially susceptible to certain illnesses, or those who are particularly health-focused, and it is always amazing to see the rise of new uses for our smartphones that nobody could have possibly predicted only a decade ago.
What we like:
- Forecast gives you a quick summary of the illnesses common in your area
- Simple UI
- Utilizes Google Map data, which will be immediately recognizable for most people
What we dislike:
- If signing in with Facebook, it requires you grant it permission to post on your behalf (you can get around this by setting it to be viewed by “Only Me”, but it’s a nuisance)
- It requires GPS be enabled, would expect basic location services to be accurate enough for general use
- If GPS is disabled, will pop up demanding it be enabled even if the app is running in the background
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