If you've ever worn a Fitbit with an iPhone, you know the drill. Your steps, sleep, and workouts live in one app, while Apple Health, the place everything else on your phone reports to, stays empty. For twelve years the workarounds were clunky third-party sync apps, or just shrugging and picking a side.
This week that changed.
Google Health 5.05 is rolling out on iOS right now, and it finally lets your Fitbit data flow straight into Apple Health. Workouts, sleep, vitals, steps. No middleman.
What changed, exactly
When Google Health replaced the Fitbit app in May, it shipped with half a bridge to Apple's ecosystem. It could read from Apple Health, pulling in workouts recorded by your iPhone, Apple Watch, and other HealthKit apps, but it couldn't write anything back. Your Fitbit data stayed locked on Google's side of the fence.
Version 5.05 finishes the bridge. The release notes are blunt about it:
"Share your data like your exercise records, sleep, vitals, steps, and more from Google Health to Apple Health."
So now it's a real two-way street. Apple Health data flows into Google Health, and Google Health data flows back out.
Setup takes about 30 seconds
Open Google Health on your iPhone (the app formerly known as Fitbit), tap your profile icon, hit Partner apps, pick Apple Health, and link it. You choose what gets shared, and anything you enable becomes available to Apple Health and every HealthKit app you've authorized.
If you're paying for a bridging app like Power Sync for Fitbit or Fitbit to Apple Health Sync, consider this your cancellation notice. Google just made them obsolete for most people.
Why did this take twelve years?
Because the bad blood is ancient history. In 2014, right after Apple introduced HealthKit with iOS 8, Fitbit said publicly it had no plans to support the platform. Fitbit was the biggest name in trackers back then, and it saw Apple's health hub as a rival for user attention, not a partner.
That posture hardened into a wall. Garmin added Apple Health sync years ago, and nobody thinks twice about wearing a Forerunner with an iPhone. Fitbit never did.
Then Google bought Fitbit, killed the Fitbit app in May, and rebuilt the whole software stack as Google Health. The Apple Health export sat on Google's public roadmap under "Sharing your data" as one of the last unfinished items. As of this week, it's checked off.
The app that got here had a rough summer
To be fair, Google Health's first three months were messy. The May launch put a Gemini-powered AI coach front and center, and a lot of longtime Fitbit users hated it. The Today tab led with coach chatter instead of your stats.
The complaints were blunt. One Reddit post that picked up a lot of traction asked why anyone should have to scroll through paragraphs of AI commentary about a 15-minute walk to the grocery store just to see their morning run. A Google Help Center thread titled "Bring back Fitbit app" filled up with the same energy.
To Google's credit, they published a roadmap with eight focus areas and actually shipped against it. Updates landed roughly every three weeks: 5.01, 5.02, 5.03, 5.04, and now 5.05. When 9to5Google audited that roadmap last week, only two items were left under data sharing: the Apple Health export and Smart Health Links. Both shipped in 5.05. That's what listening looks like.
Why this matters more than it looks
The biggest argument for staying inside one ecosystem has always been your data. Buy an Apple Watch and everything flows through Apple Health effortlessly. Wear almost anything else with an iPhone and you fight for it. Fitbit was the worst offender, mostly because of how many people own one. With a native export, wearing a Fitbit or the new screenless Fitbit Air with an iPhone finally feels like a normal setup instead of a hack.
It also makes mixed-device setups actually viable. Run with an Apple Watch and sleep with a Fitbit band? Before this week that meant sync apps and crossed fingers. Now both directions flow natively. Trackers keep getting more specialized, with screenless bands for recovery and watches for training, and cross-brand data plumbing is the feature that makes the whole category work.
And here's the awkward part for Samsung: the Galaxy Watch still doesn't sync with Apple Health, because Samsung Health on iOS has no HealthKit integration at all. Wear a Galaxy Watch with an iPhone and your data lives in Samsung Health, full stop. Google, another Android-first hardware company, just did the thing Samsung hasn't. If you carry an iPhone and you're cross-shopping wearables, that's a real differentiator now.
Also in 5.05: Smart Health Links
The update ships one more feature, US-only for now. Smart Health Links let you share medical records with a doctor or a family member through a shareable URL or QR code. You build one from the Health tab, Medical section, Shareable records, tap the plus icon, and pick what to include. It sounds minor until you're the person trying to fax medical records in 2026.
A few caveats before you get excited
Google rolls features out in waves, so if you don't see Apple Health under Partner apps yet, give it a few days and confirm you're on 5.05. Everything you enable flows into Apple Health and onward to whatever HealthKit apps you've authorized, so review those permissions on purpose instead of toggling everything on.
And no, this isn't a Premium upsell. The sync works on free accounts. Premium still gates the AI coach and adaptive plans at $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year, and it's bundled into Google AI Pro and Ultra if you already pay for those.
On Android, nothing changes. Health Connect already plays the hub role there, so this was always an iOS story.
Bottom line
Twelve years after Fitbit snubbed HealthKit at launch, the last big holdout in fitness tracking has plugged in. If you wear Fitbit hardware with an iPhone, and there are tens of millions of you, this is the update that makes the whole setup feel native.
It's also a quiet signal about where Google wants health to go. Not a walled garden, but a hub that plays nice with everyone. Whether that openness survives Google's next reorg is anybody's guess. But for the first time since 2014, Fitbit and Apple Health speak the same language.
Sources: The Verge, 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, Google Health support forums.