New iPhone update could save lives with 'just a few taps'

With phone updates often come complex new programs like the much-disputed Stocks app or seemingly unneccesary features like iTunes U. But one iOS update coming this fall will help iPhone users save lives with “just a few taps.”

When the regularly scheduled software update becomes available, users will be able to register as an organ donor straight from their iPhones built-in Health app, according to a Tuesday press release.

The app already allows users to list medical conditions and add emergency contact information, but with the iOS 10 update users can decide to donate organs, eyes and tissue. Personal information will be sent directly to national Donate Life database.

Donate Life America, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing organ donations, is working with Apple on the update and estimates that 120,000 people are currently waiting for an organ — and that one more person is added every 10 minutes.

The group says that an organ donation can save up to eight lives; a cornea donation could restore vision for two people and that tissue donation can “heal the lives of up to 50 people.”

“On average, one person dies every hour in the United States waiting for an organ transplant because the demand for life-saving transplants far exceeds the available supply of organs — and one donor can save as many as eight lives,” said David Fleming, president and CEO of Donate Life America, in the press release.

Apple CEO Tim Cook had a personal reason for working with Donate Life on the new feature after watching his predecessor Steve Jobs' wait for a liver transplant in 2009. Though he recieved a transplant, Jobs died two years later from pancreatic cancer.

"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.

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