Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple to Face Claims it Bars Third-Party Heart-Rate App Functionality on Apple Watch
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
So the company doesn’t have this available via other wearables?
I understood individual products cannot be deemed a monopoly.
Ie Coca-Cola is not a monopoly on Coke because other soft drinks available. For instance Pepsi.
So not sure how Apple Watch is a separate market to non-Apple watches such as Samsung Galaxy watches, which surely is what would have to argue.
I understood individual products cannot be deemed a monopoly.
Ie Coca-Cola is not a monopoly on Coke because other soft drinks available. For instance Pepsi.
So not sure how Apple Watch is a separate market to non-Apple watches such as Samsung Galaxy watches, which surely is what would have to argue.
They suing fitbit next???
Wish we llived in a free country where you could create a product, tell customers the rules before they buy, and have the customers be happy with those rules and not sue to change said rules (or in this case not have other companies sue to get in on your creations functionality).
Wish we llived in a free country where you could create a product, tell customers the rules before they buy, and have the customers be happy with those rules and not sue to change said rules (or in this case not have other companies sue to get in on your creations functionality).
If sideloading were only allowed this would be a non-issue.
Wait, is competition illegal now? ? If there was no patent infringement, this is just crying that the world is unfair. Sorry AliveCor, you made a bad call on building a single purpose device.
AliveCor has an active patent case against Apple, but that isn't likely to be fruitful. And even if it were, does not advance the anti-trust argument at all. As stated in the article: Apple, based in Cupertino, California, countered that it was an "uncontroversial proposition that product improvement by itself" did not violate the federal Sherman antitrust law.
Exactly. It would have been impossible to build the feature in one year. And it's illogical to conclude that Apple saw KardiaBand's "success" -- such successful that it got discontinued -- and only then thought about putting ECG into a watch.
Even if a Judge were to find Apple being anti-competitive, isn't the "ECG" that is approved by FDA not a complete package of hardware and software? Thus forcing AliveCor to go through the onerous and expensive FDA approval for their feature on one model of Apple Watch and having to reapply for each new model?
But if a judge did rule against Apple here, we'd likely see a bi-partisan demand to address whatever clause got misinterpreted in legislation allowing Alivecor to prevail. This wouldn't be different than a potential suit from Rivian or Tesla against a large auto manufacturer if they build a better electric vehicle.
Last edited:
It might still be afoul of FDA rules though. I believe the ECG functionality is approved as a software/hardware package.
That said, I'm on the side that hopes Apple prevails against side-loading. Jailbreaking should be legal, but Apple shouldn't have to facilitate it, or side-loading.
It's worse than that. AliveCor isn't alleging patent infringement in this suit. It's just "Hey judge, tell them they have to let us use their stuff since customer's don't want ours anymore."
They have an active patent case against Apple, but that's unlikely to succeed which is likely why this farce was filed.
This is the slippery-slope that will only get worse if Epic prevails.
Translation: "We foolishly made a product based on undocumented features of someone else's product, and now they've made a change to that product, without discussing it with us first - so clearly they must be doing it specifically to hurt us."
Yeah, or maybe you shouldn't have spent a bunch of time and money doing that in the first place, and Apple changed something because they found a better way to do it.
And if you were offering patient care based on your use of these undocumented features in someone else's product... perhaps the FDA ought to be taking a very careful look at the certification of your devices.
Yeah, or maybe you shouldn't have spent a bunch of time and money doing that in the first place, and Apple changed something because they found a better way to do it.
And if you were offering patient care based on your use of these undocumented features in someone else's product... perhaps the FDA ought to be taking a very careful look at the certification of your devices.
I see no real substance in the complaint just a lot of words that boil down to, ‘we want the kind of business Apple has.’
Heart rate monitoring is pretty straightforward. It is just physics that has been understood for more than a century. There is nothing magical about what Apple Watch does.
On my part I think we all have to be careful interpreting heart rate. Once I was sitting totally zonked on a sofa from a horribly nasty flu, barely able to move and semi-conscious, and my Fitbit congratulated me on my exercise workout. Heart rate is hard ot interpret without knowing the full context. Don't trust a watch. Trust your physician.
Not saying there is. My concern is that other 3rd party for-profit companies doing something different to Apple, using data incorrectly and miss-reporting things. Apple is not perfect but they put safety first, not convinced safety is always above profits with others.
I don't know what 3rd parties offer or can do, despite all my criticism of Apple over the years, I trust them to do the right thing when it comes to elements like heart rate, ECG, and so on.
Seems a fairly straightforward ruling; there is enough evidence Apple may have hampered third-party ECG device functionality with the introduction of the series 4 and their own ECG components so as not to dismiss that claim outright. Since the Kardiaband is basically an accessory to an Apple Watch and not a direct competitor, the other claim seems to have been rightfully dismissed. From what I can tell, AliveCor makes app enabled devices to monitor heart function, but not necessarily wearable ones similar to the AppleWatch.
People can say what they want about lawyers making money or whatever else, but at the end of the day, Apple wasn't able to clearly demonstrate that the changes made were unrelated to the introduction of their own ECG functionality, and now have to go through the process of proving it at trial, barring a settlement of some type. I'm sure there will be plenty of "Apple makes the device and software, the can do whatever they please," or similar, but at this point courts have already made it clear it's much more nuanced than that.
People can say what they want about lawyers making money or whatever else, but at the end of the day, Apple wasn't able to clearly demonstrate that the changes made were unrelated to the introduction of their own ECG functionality, and now have to go through the process of proving it at trial, barring a settlement of some type. I'm sure there will be plenty of "Apple makes the device and software, the can do whatever they please," or similar, but at this point courts have already made it clear it's much more nuanced than that.
Last edited:
I would not trust any hardware/software combination for medical purposes that is not cleared by the FDA. Like you I do not trust for-profit companies, which is why I think FDA clearance is so important (the Apple watch ECG is cleared by the FDA).
I'd bet my apple watch (iow imo) that whatever change Apple made, they had the change fully scoped out and knew exactly where it would head...including potentially trial.