dewme

Mr Kiani is exactly correct in stating that the diagnosis of a serious medical condition such as Obstructive Sleep Apnea requires the use of medical grade equipment that has been certified (and quite likely calibrated) for detecting the condition in question. But then he goes on to rail against Apple's pulse oximetry implementation and its limitations when, in fact, Apple has never sought to certify or make any specific claims about the use of their pulse oximetry feature for diagnosing the conditions in question. Basically, he's criticizing Apple for not doing something that Apple specifically and officially claims they are not doing, and rightly, should not be doing at the level of their involvement.   

I do understand Mr Kiani's concerns from the standpoint of defining where devices such as the Apple Watch fall within the larger scope of health care. It's no different than the features in Apple Watch that detect irregular or abnormal heartbeats and heart rates. I have no doubt that many folks who are inside the realm of producing medical grade diagnostic equipment for helping doctors and healthcare professionals diagnose medical conditions have a negative reaction to seeing features in consumer products that may be implicitly seen as being valid medical diagnostic tools by users regardless of the many disclaimers put forth by the device maker. This is a legitimate concern, but it must be put into the broader perspective of individual's participation and awareness of their overall health and wellbeing. 

People are not like a herd of cows whose health, safety, and wellbeing depends on an individual like a medical specialist or doctor who is responsible for their husbandry. Most people are self aware and are responsible for participating in their own health care to a certain extent. If they don't feel well or notice something is "off," i.e., are exhibiting some kind of symptoms, they can and probably should seek the care of a medical professional. Unfortunately there are a lot of symptoms that can go unnoticed by an individual. For example, someone with obstructive sleep apnea may snore very loudly or stop breathing intermittently when they are sleeping. If there is nobody nearby, like a bedmate, to observe the symptoms the underlying condition may go unnoticed and not acted upon, which can lead to other serious health conditions. If their bedmate observes the symptoms, like obnoxious snoring, they can inform the affected person to look into what may be causing the snoring and bring it up with their primary care physician at their next visit.

In the example above is the bedmate a medical grade diagnostician? Unless the bedmate is a medical professional the answer is no. The bedmate is simply an observer who happens to observe something the affected person was unable to detect on their own, in this case because they are sleeping. Even if the bedmate observer was a medical professional they would still steer the affected person towards a medical professional who can properly diagnose the affected person's condition using all of the certified tools at their disposal. There's a huge difference between an observer and a diagnostician. The observer merely collects data. Turning data into information and subsequently turning information into action and response via diagnostic procedures requires additional context and appropriate reactive activities, including the application of medical grade measurement and diagnostic equipment and the consultation with other professionals. 

The Apple Watch is an observer that is capable of capturing, even if on a limited or intermittent basis, health related data that could otherwise go unnoticed by the wearer. No more, no less. The Apple Watch does not elevate the interpretation of the observed data and it most certainly does not attempt to diagnose the underlying condition. As a caring and responsible observer it does steer the wearer towards seeking professional help. When viewing healthcare from a holistic perspective, one that involves personal awareness and participation, and in concert with all of the other formal and professional layers, it's doing exactly what it can do and should do at this point in its evolution. 

I have to admit that I pretty much ignore the Dynamic Island on my 14 Pro Max. Not by choice but simply by habit and conditioning. Something may appear in the pill hole every so often but my Pavlovian conditioning from several years of using notchy phones kicks in and my brain pretty much blocks it out. Poof! It's suddenly invisible. I may occasionally notice something in the hole, but it doesn't register as anything important because it's so tiny. If it was something I really needed to know it would be put into a notification and have persistence. I honestly cannot attest to ever seeing the Dynamic Island cleave into two smaller mini islands. As conditioning based responses go, this one's not too bad I suppose. There's no uncontrollable salivation or drooling involved. 

You're going to need very deep pockets to carry one of these - literally.

Cargo pants may not be enough. This may require a belt with a scabbard.

Does anyone sell a MagSafe compatible scabbard?

If these kiddies are pooping their jammies about green bubbles, how are they possibly going to handle actual, real, meaningful, consequential, life-altering problems, many of which our generation is blithely leaving them as a legacy to our self-centered and burn-it-down-to-the-ground attitudes around things like the environment, energy, pollution, authoritarianism, inequity, poverty, crumbling infrastructure, corrosive social media, social injustice, corruption, mass shootings, and nuclear weapons proliferation? You know, just a few of the things that may be "slightly" more concerning than blue bubbles versus green bubbles (BB vs. GB).  

Perhaps the process of overcoming the horror of green bubble stigma will serve as a first step in toughening up those jellylike spines so they can move on to cleaning up the real mess that we've left for them. Sorry kids, we did it, you're screwed. Hopefully they will someday look back on the BB vs. GB days with a certain amount of fondness, longing, and desire to declare the worst of life's problems meaningless and easy-to-ignore once again. Maybe they'll even forgive us?

Okay, so let's all marshal our collective energy and resources to ensure that someday everyone, everywhere, and without exception ... will have their text messages surrounded by lovely blue bubbles. Life will be good when all text bubbles are blue, unless you have a blue color vision deficiency, in which case you'll be totally hosed and have to find something else to be aggrieved about.

While I haven't seen the update being available yet this is one tiny bit of information about what is in this update:  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT214048