Diabetes Diary for iPhone
Over the last couple of months I’ve been learning Objective-C and developing my first (and certainly not my last) iPhone app: Diabetes Diary. At the end of last 2008 I started developing an iPhone-optimised Ruby-on-Rails web app for monitoring my diabetes. I soon realised that while it was a nice way of recording glucose readings, the web-based experience wasn’t ideal and obviously required an internet connection. So I decided to learn Objective-C, build a native application and sign up as an iPhone developer.
I’m proud to say that Diabetes Diary is now available in the iTunes App Store and more information is available at mydiabetesdiary.net.
So what does it do? Diabetes Diary records your blood glucose readings (mmol/L and mg/dL are supported) and insulin doses. You can then look back at your activity and see statistical averages for glucose and insulin for each month and the last seven days and see graphs for these periods. To do more analysis on your history you can download a CSV file to your Mac or PC over a local wifi connection.
Its a simple application and I’ll be waiting on feedback to see how I should develop it further. I certainly don’t expect to make any money from it, although recovering my iPhone dev fees would be nice 
12 Comments for Diabetes Diary for iPhone
Hello,
This looks fantastic, do you know whether it would work on the LG touchphone?
Hi Cathey
I’m afraid Diabetes Diary is only available for the iPhone and iPod Touch
This app is great. Just downloaded it and entered some history. I haven’t figured out how to customize the lists yet, but that will be cool too. The .csv option over wi-fi is brilliant btw.
I was thinking it might be nice to have an extra field for “pre-prandial” or “correction” to establish the intent of the injection, and possibly fields for CHO, Protein” as well to track your estimates of food intake…in case you’re looking for feedback.
Thanks though, the app is really good. Best one I’ve seen on the App store.
Jay.
Actually never mind, I just added a “Humalog Correction” and a “Humalog Pre-Prandial” type to my insulin list…seems to work pretty well.
I like the fact that it’s one screen to enter all your data. That is really convenient. Any plans to when “activity” might be added as an entry?
Would it be possible to have a graph export function to Excel format ? or a CSV file format that would be easier to chart with from Excel. My doctor would like to be see a chart at my review meetings but I am not sure how I can create a chart in Excel which is similar to yours?
Hi Colin
Diabetes Diary supports CSV file export. You need to connect your iPhone / iPod touch to the same wifi network as your computer and turn on the back-up server in the Download menu. Enter one of the given URLs in your computer’s web browser and you’ll see a list of all your history and the option to download a CSV file. However, in the current version the date and time are badly formatted and aren’t recognised by Excel. This will be fixed in the next update.
Thanks Chris, it would be great if the readings could be one single record for each date and each reading separated within the record. This would make the excel import really very easy. I have shown the app to a number of friends and my GP and everyone thinks that it is great.
We just downloaded the Diabetes Diary. There is one thing we are trying to figure out. My daughter takes two types of insulin but there is only one column on the history page. Is there a way to add a column to break up the two types of insulin on the report. Also, it would be easier at the point of inputing information to be able to put both in on a single page.
Hi Theresa
Insulin types are distinguished by their colour (in the lists and on graphs). You can edit the insulin list and set colours as you like so you can easily see which is which. However, summaries and averages are based on the total of all insulin intake.
One more question! I can’t figure out how to email the info. We get to the place where you are supposed to be able to do it but it is not in bold and it will not open up. I thought you might have to do the backup first but it is not terribly easy either. We have wi-fi but it doesn’t seem to find it. Help! We have a doctor’s appt that we need this info for.
Hi Theresa
You can email history from any of the summary screens, ie for Last Seven Days or any previous month. If the button is greyed-out it means you iPhone or iPod touch has not been set up with an email account – Diabetes Diary uses your email account to send email. You don’t need to back-up first but you can export history to a computer on the same wifi network and send that as an email.
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