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Comment by Titanous | Hacker News Reader

The iPhone 5 doesn't have the "motion coprocessor" (added in 5S), so it's unlikely that it will gather this data without a third-party app.

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Correct. Also the 5S doesn't have barometer/altimeter so you won't get flights climbed.

The flights climbed number for me is off. I'm not surprised at that, FitBit got rid of the feature for the same reason (it's really hard to get right), but I'm a bit surprised that since it's not very accurate it was included at all.

When I experimented with my FitBit I had to exaggerate my vertical motion when going up and down stars to get it to register well. It seems I'm too 'smooth' walking up and down stairs to reliably trigger the mechanism.

Apple is just starting out with these sensors, so they're likely to make the same mistakes that FitBit made a few years ago.

that's not likely

Sure it is. Users are already getting inaccurate 'floors' measurements and posting the associated bug reports in their forums. If Apple had paid attention to FitBit's featureset over time Apple would have realized the feature was removed because it was uselessly inaccurate. A barometric sensor doesn't become more accurate for tracking flights of stairs climbed just because it's in a device with an Apple logo.

My Fitbit reports the number of flights climbed - it's the Fitbit 'One' model. Along with my daily 10k steps, I have a flights climbed goal that I track through the website. Maybe it's a different model that doesn't track this?

It was removed after the One (on the Flex), supposedly because it didn't work that well. I imagine it would have been hard to waterproof as well.

Which makes you wonder why they even bothered including the app on the iPhone 5. It's got to be the most pointless app on my phone.

3rd party apps and fitness trackers will be able to feed data into the app now that 8.02 is out.

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