AliveCor Files Antitrust Suit Against Apple for Preventing Third-Party Irregular Heart Rhythm Analysis on Apple Watch

[sxhong]

Whoever said that Apple has no obligation of building hardware for their software should read the complaint first, What APPLE did was nothing short of stealing, on page 7 of the complaint,
"22. AliveCor’s innovations did not go unnoticed. After Dr. Albert first presented his idea for the KardiaBand just a month after the Apple Watch release, he received a message from Dr. Michael O’Reilly, Apple’s VP of Medical Technology, asking him to come to Apple’s campus and present his ideas. At that meeting, Dr. Albert demonstrated the KardiaBand prototype to Apple engineers and to Apple’s COO, Jeff Williams. Mr. Williams told Dr. Albert— at least at that time— that Apple wanted to figure out how to work with AliveCor."
Apple was seeking cooperation with AliverCor first and later turn its back on them and steal their idea. Shame on Apple and I hope this case will teach Apple some lesson

 

[sidewinder3000]

I don’t like hearing stories of how Apple might be cutting the legs out from innovative companies in their ecosystem. I hope they can work this out. It will serve all Apple users to have a robust ecosystem of hardware and software developers who are putting out new and innovative products.

 

[Krizoitz]

Whoever said that Apple has no obligation of building hardware for their software should read the complaint first, What APPLE did was nothing short of stealing, on page 7 of the complaint,

1. Just because AliveCor makes this claim does not mean its true.
2. Unless Apple agreed in advance not to use any ideas from the meeting and/or Apple used proprietary technology from AliveCor, then no, they are in fact NOT stealing.
3. Apple may very well (likely) have already been working on their own functionality, they might have met with AliveCor to provide something in the short term. Or they might have believed AliveCor would offer additional functionality their own product wouldn't so felt it was worth working together. Or they might have been interested in licensing, or even buying AliveCor's technology to boost their own efforts. But again, if they did not use proprietary information or use information shared when they had agreed not to, its not stealing. One way companies conduct business like this is to silo off the team meeting with the external company and the team working on the competing product, exactly to prevent even accidental use of others technology.

Meeting with AliveCor doesn't obligate Apple to partner with or help AliveCor.
Meeting with AliveCor doesn't prevent Apple from making/selling a competing product.

Companies, especially large ones, work with competitors all the time. Take Samsung for example, who both makes a competing smartphone AND makes parts (such as screens) FOR the iPhone. You can bet Apple AND Samsung make sure the team working on the displays for the iPhone is separate from the team working on making Galaxy phones. Additionally Apple probably limits what information the display team even gets about the iPhone to the bare minimum. Employees at companies, especially large corporations have to take training on those exact kind of situations.

Is it possible that Apple did do something which would break the law? Sure, it could have been unintentional or even intentional. But an accusation doesn't mean it happened, and what you THINK happened vs. what did happen vs. what is legal and not are all different things.

 

[Ursadorable]

Honestly, I support Apple on this. I don't trust 3rd party companies to handle my personal information, especially in a world of forever changing terms of service and privacy policies. Too many companies have proven that they don't value customer privacy, even if 'anonymized'.

 

[jlc1978]

Apple charges people for something. They are therefore obligated to actually deliver it and not break it..

AFAICT, Apple does just that. Alivecor’s product still works with Apple watches prior to the update, so if someone keeps the original watch setup it works.

Nothing obligated Apple to maintain backwards compatibility.

To use a car example, my computer diagnostic tools work fine on the cars they originally did, but later models from the same manufacturer are not compatible.

 

[DeepIn2U]

They did get FDA approval per the article but their complaint is that they are dependent upon Apple devices to trigger their own device's operation and Apple has changes its API so they can no longer trigger that process. If I were making a medical device that was dependent on Siemens imaging equipment to trigger my operation I wouldn't be at all surprised if Siemens unilaterally changed their interfaces either. That would have been a risk I took on by making my device dependent upon another manufacturer without contractual agreements in place to support said interface. They're taking a shot in the courts but it won't work out in their favor.

edit: typo

as per the information in this article, very thorough I might ad & very welcomed (is the writer new on the team?!!), seems like Apple knew about the competing product and in 2017 chose a different direction towards health for WatchOS and hardware features.

considering new management withinApple and divisions towards health after Watch 2 and subsequent watch models and OS versions they may have a Very solid case here.

also consider this issue was long before Afib and other certifications in certain countries and thus should not have completely changed WatchOS, eligibly, preventing features on API ‘s this third party company relied on.

critical to this, not only did Apple reject their app against policies - specifics we’re not privy to - but that Apple has created ResearchKit API for universities to conduct research studies - of which potentially this third party could’ve engaged and participated in allowing their app to compete or provide an alternative.

OMFG - someone is gonna directly compare this to app stores and payments and draw decent parallels to change my thinking being the opposite on those topics to how I’m reading and think about this issue/case. But changing my mind on that l, it’s not gonna happen today lol

 

[Alan Wynn]

Tim Cook talks about reading letters of people's lives he's saved, and then they cut out a competitor that actually has a better and less expensive product. How many lives has that impacted?

How is it less expensive, as it requires an Apple Watch to function? If it did not, they would not be in this postition.

 

[Allyance]

It is not actually better, I bought the model that utilized the AW band, difficult to get a consistent reading, sent it back. My AW works fine. It is a feature you don't use every day. More concerned about blood pressure. I have an iHealth cuff that works well, maybe a little high.

 

[swingerofbirch]

How is it less expensive, as it requires an Apple Watch to function? If it did not, they would not be in this postition.

I was thinking of the pad when I wrote that which doesn't require an Apple Watch. It's $89 and works with any smartphone. The Kardia Band is not available anymore for the reasons AliveCor mentioned, but even when it was, you could argue it's less expensive to add on a band to your existing Apple Watch than have to buy a new Apple Watch with EKG features.

 

[Allyance]

I was thinking of the pad when I wrote that which doesn't require an Apple Watch. It's $89 and works with any smartphone. The Kardia Band is not available anymore for the reasons AliveCor mentioned, but even when it was, you could argue it's less expensive to add on a band to your existing Apple Watch than have to buy a new Apple Watch with EKG features.

You get what you paid for, like I said it didn't work very well, difficult to get it to read, AW much more reliable, always reads.

 

[Alan Wynn]

I was thinking of the pad when I wrote that which doesn't require an Apple Watch. It's $89 and works with any smartphone. The Kardia Band is not available anymore for the reasons AliveCor mentioned, but even when it was, you could argue it's less expensive to add on a band to your existing Apple Watch than have to buy a new Apple Watch with EKG features.

From the press release announcing it:

KardiaBand is available starting today for $199 and requires subscription to AliveCor’s Premium service for $99 a year. The combined system includes SmartRhythm notifications on Apple Watch; unlimited EKG recordings; automatic detection of Atrial Fibrillation or normal sinus rhythm; the unlimited ability to send EKG readings to anyone via email; unlimited cloud history and reporting of all EKGs ever taken; weight and medication tracking; and a mailed monthly paper report on readings taken each calendar month.

In other words: It is $298 for the first year and $99 a year for every year after, and you need an Apple Watch. Meaning that after 366 days, it is the same price as a brand new Series 6, and just keeps getting more expensive. You are right, for a very short period it would be cheaper, if one already had an Apple Watch. Granted if one had an Apple Watch, one could probably trade it in for the $100 price difference and then we are back to it being the same or cheaper to get an Apple Watch which is also faster than any watch before Series 4, but I guess you can spin it however you want.

 

[manonfire]

… and iOS versions, and ECG hardware versions, etc. If some small change breaks the measurement/evaluation, you now have millions running an FDA-unapproved scenario with implied approval, and Apple being blamed for “this medical device doesn’t work”. Apple can’t guarantee their changes won’t break aliveCor’s app. At best many users think poorly of Apple (marketing nightmare), at worst Apple gets fined/sued for lots of digit$.

I mean neither company is necessary at fault. Neither the apple watch nor aliveCor are approved by any medical society for diagnosis or monitoring of arrhythmias. If the app breaks due to version differences and dependencies then there may be media/marketing fallout, but it's very limited due to the scope of the device. As stated within Apple's own documentation for the ECG app:

"The ECG app is intended for over-the-counter (OTC) use. The ECG data displayed by the ECG app is intended for informational use only. The user is not intended to interpret or take clinical action based on the device output without consultation of a qualified healthcare professional. The ECG waveform is meant to supplement rhythm classification for the purposes of discriminating AFib from normal sinus rhythm and not intended to replace traditional methods of diagnosis or treatment."1

You can’t guarantee Apple won’t get screwed in this scenario.

I guarantee you they won't due to nature of FDA approvals for devices like this. Which is why you can't sue apple for millions if you have a sudden embolic stroke and the watch reads it as normal sinus rhythm. Yea, it should've been able to detect the atrial fibrillation that caused the thrombus formation, but it's non-diagnostic and is not standard of care.

 

[Doc.Tauri]

I stopped showing my Apple Watch cardio “pseudo data” to my cardiologist after he and his colleagues had a good laugh with me alongside about how bogus it was. The data from the watch didn’t at all look like the data from the outboard unit I wore during the same period for 3 days. Very dissimilar results actually.

On the other hand, after attempting for 3 years to captures my son's heart palpitations, we finally captured it with an Apple Watch 5. The cardiologist was able to take that info and make an initial diagnosis. Further tests using this info allowed them to positively identify the issue that had been eluding Children's Hospital and Washington Hospital Center for 3 years.

You might want to find a different cardiologist.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

On the other hand, after attempting for 3 years to captures my son's heart palpitations, we finally captured it with an Apple Watch 5. The cardiologist was able to take that info and make an initial diagnosis. Further tests using this info allowed them to positively identify the issue that had been eluding Children's Hospital and Washington Hospital Center for 3 years.

You might want to find a different cardiologist.

I agree with you on this. Any competent caring cardiologist will be aware that while the Apple Watch isn’t perfect, the value of having months of data as their patient is just “living life” is far more valuable than 3 days of a device that wasn’t on you two weeks before or a month later.

I can’t even fathom the mindset that would make a cardiologist say that and I’d certainly be looking for another.