Blood Pressure Diary by MedM

I appreciate this app for its ability to sync with my BP monitor, and for not requiring an account. Until recently, it was a five-star app for me. However, one of its essential features is Apple Health sync. This used to be a basic feature of the app, and is now paywalled behind their Premium subscription service. That’s frustrating for long-time users. I understand that maintaining an app takes money, but I don’t want to use their cloud service, so asking me to pay a recurring subscription with tons of cloud features I don’t need just to sync with Apple Health on my own device is very annoying. I’m happy to pay, just not the same price cloud users pay on a recurring basis for a local feature that has very little expense for the developer (since it’s already been implemented for years). Till out a one-time in-app purchase allowing Apple Health sync and this will be five stars for me again!

It is a good application and mostly does what it is supposed to. I like the graphics: self-explanatory chart, easy to navigate around, calculates averages of BB for the day, and a few more options. Unfortunately, it will not sync readings to Apple Health unless you purchase a subscription. I understand the developer has financial obligations, but the medical records belong to the user, and Apple Health is free. I would not pay for a subscription to transfer data from one app to another or share the readings with the provider, certainly not by making monthly payments. I guess manual input is an option. I give it five stars because I like the app and its design. Works very well with Oxiline Blood Monitor X Pro.

I had initial problems getting the app to separate the readings from the two users on my Omron BP monitor. That made the app quite useless. However the MedM support was great and they gave me links to the place in the manual which describes how to set up the app for two users (the manual can be found in the “Help” section of the app). It turns out you need to make a few changes in the Apple Health app. Once I made that change I found the app to be absolutely wonderful when paired with my Omron “Platinum” BP device. It now downloads readings for each user and lets me export those readings to Excel. I can then send that to my cardiologist. The app itself also performs a little manipulation and, of course, stores lots more than the 100 reading limit of my Omron BP monitor. One last thing. I did try Omron’s own app and I found it to be difficult, buggy, and worst of all, very intrusive. Omron wanted to collect all sorts of personal data. By contrast, MedM lets you choose what to share and, if you do decide to share data, they give you all sorts of additional benefits. I haven’t looked into all of those benefits, but they do sound intriguing and look to be worth doing. I am very happ with this app. John Meyer