My Walking + Running Data on iOS 8

Since upgrading to iOS 8, I have been tracking my running data using Apple's Health app.  With my old iPhone 5 running iOS8, I had been manually entering my run distances--I know that I could pair the Health app with a variety of running apps to have the data tracked automatically, but I stopped using them because they exert a heavy toll on battery life (see my post on running apps for more).  After upgrading to my iPhone 6 Plus, I have enabled Fitness Tracking (Settings > Privacy > Motion & Fitness) and feel that my running distances are tracked fairly accurately with the motion sensors that consume far less energy than GPS.  Here's what my Walking + Running dashboard looks like:

Note the spike in activity during the March 28 to April 3 timeframe--that's when I went on a cruise (see this blog post for more) and ran on the ship's treadmill 1-2 times/day.  Speaking of treadmills, despite turning on the iPhone Fitness Tracking option, I still have to manually input my treadmill run distances because I don't carry my phone in my hands when I run on treadmills, so my phone is not able to estimate run distances.  Even if I did hold my phone while running on the treadmill, I wonder how accurate the data would be--perhaps I'll experiment with that scenario and blog about it later.

One thing I wish the Health app would do is to somehow differentiate between walking and running distances rather than merging them into a single "Walking + Running" distance.  I can understand why Apple did this for technical simplicity, but I personally don't consider my daily walking distances to count as exercise--rather, that is simply a byproduct of being alive (for me personally--I know that many people walk for exercise as well which is great).  Running, on the other hand, is what I prefer to track separately because I do it with the intent of improving fitness.

In any case, I am not really sure what I will do with this data in the future, but I expect that someone will write a cool app using HealthKit that will leverage personal health data to present insightful analytics and/or personalized recommendations to improve health and well-being.  Oh developer, where art thou?