Apple to Add Organ Donor Registration Option to Health App in iOS 10

Apple will add the ability for users to register as an Organ Donor in the updated Health app arriving with iOS 10, reports CNBC.

Apple is adding the option to register with Donate Life by clicking a new button within the iPhone's Health app, which was introduced in 2014 as a tool for recording and managing a variety of health and fitness data. Another new button will link to information about organ donation. If a user registers as a donor, the app can add that fact to an optional "emergency information" display that can be seen when the phone is locked.




Apple co-founder Steve Jobs received a liver transplant in 2009 and then lobbied for a bill that created a live donor registry for kidney transplants in California. It also required drivers in the state to decide whether they want to be organ donors when they renew their license.

If Jobs would have waited for a liver in his own state he may not have received one before his gave out. Tim Cook even offered Jobs a portion of his liver. "Watching and seeing him every day, waiting and not knowing — it stuck with me and left an impression that I'll never forget," Cook told The Associated Press.

The new registration option in the Health app could increase in the number of donors nationwide. iOS 10 will arrive for all users this fall alongside the company's next generation iPhone. Developers will get it in a new beta of iOS 10 which will reportedly drop this week.

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