These magnets in the iPhone 12 are really an annoyance. Not useful, and bad if you happen to have magnetic-sensitive devices nearby. This, together with the wrong position of the ON/OFF button (don't you usually take an unwanted screen capture whenever you want to increase the volume in a 12 Mini?), and added to the useless protruding camera (expecting you'll use a case: sorry but there are users that don't put cases to their iPhones, me included), shows that they tried to copy the great design of the iPhone 5 but failed in almost every aspect.
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Medical Doctors Underline Potential Risk of iPhone 12 Interference With Pacemakers
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I don’t think this has been answered yet, but how much more dangerous is the iphone 12 with magsafe relative to smartphones without magsafe like strong magnets? I‘m seeing a lot on how other phones could also potentially trigger the switch and brush it off as a user problem for not knowing better. But if someone kept is safe by keeping smartphones a certain distance away for years, would now potentially be in danger if they use the iphone 12 at the same distance?
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I bought one MagSafe puck, and when it didn't work with the OtterBox case, never bought any other gadgets. I could rather easily be made to believe that the whole MagSafe gadget line has a diminished level of usability/practicality.
But someone without an implanted device should have little worry about exposure to the magnets in the iPhone 12. At least so far, as much as we know at this point. Who knows what damage immersion in our complicated messy existence is causing on a minute and continuous basis. 🥺 Humans are so fragile. Life is so precious...
Magetism is believed to be harmless. The level of intensity to cause a problem would likely have to be so severe that an iPhone 12 wouldn't even register. If it were possible for strong magnetic fields to kill or harm humans, a trip through an MRI machine would be a death sentence. I had an MRI in November, and I could almost feel the effects of either the magnetism, or the power, in hairs on my arms. It's a weird feeling, yet MRI's are considered far safer than CT scans which use x-ray technology.
Basically, personal responsibility for ones' well being and care is out the window. Got it.
As someone who works in med device, I’ll say first off innovation in the space and Apples goals with the Apple Watch and Health initiatives are great things. Really admire where they want to go. Large device companies aren’t doing the majority of the innovation these days.
One of my bigger concerns when tech companies get involved in healthcare products is they take more of a widget approach to product development and don’t truly understand the responsibility you have developing a product that can save or improve the quality of someone’s life.
Case in point, someone thought the magnets were cool and could create a good user experience. However no one considered the impact on patients with ICDs and pacemakers, which as most know now is an issue. It’s a safe bet a lot of those patients are buying the Apple Watch for the convenience of its HRM and ECG. So they’re invested in the ecosystem and likely a large number of these folks have iPhone 12/Pro/Pro Max.
If Apple had a few more people with a med tech background on the team this might not have happened. I also think their team of medical advisors has some gaps but that isn’t germane to this discussion.
Magnets are safe unless youre dumb enough to swallow a bunch of rare earth magnets. MRIs are harmless. I’ve had to validate my products to be MR conditional. Can’t remember exact numbers but iirc a 3T MRI is around 30,000 gauss and earths magnetic field is 0.5 gauss. So it may very well feel weird for some people. Our body compositions are different and it could also simply be psychosomatic, YMMV.
CT uses ionizing radiation, kind of bad for you. Same goes if you’re in the Cath or IR lab for a procedure as the C Arm uses ionizing radiation too. There’s a reason why people use lead shields, thyroid guards and leaded glasses.
I’m not a doc but personally unless there’s a legit clinical rationale to using CT, C-Arm or X-ray over MRI or ultrasound (speed isn’t a reason but better and more accurate imaging is) I always choose the non ionizing radiation options. I’ve spent enough time for work in front of a C-Arm.
EDIT - hadn’t had my first spro of the day and forgot to mention if they have watch they probably have an iPhone.
One of my bigger concerns when tech companies get involved in healthcare products is they take more of a widget approach to product development and don’t truly understand the responsibility you have developing a product that can save or improve the quality of someone’s life.
Case in point, someone thought the magnets were cool and could create a good user experience. However no one considered the impact on patients with ICDs and pacemakers, which as most know now is an issue. It’s a safe bet a lot of those patients are buying the Apple Watch for the convenience of its HRM and ECG. So they’re invested in the ecosystem and likely a large number of these folks have iPhone 12/Pro/Pro Max.
If Apple had a few more people with a med tech background on the team this might not have happened. I also think their team of medical advisors has some gaps but that isn’t germane to this discussion.
Magnets are safe unless youre dumb enough to swallow a bunch of rare earth magnets. MRIs are harmless. I’ve had to validate my products to be MR conditional. Can’t remember exact numbers but iirc a 3T MRI is around 30,000 gauss and earths magnetic field is 0.5 gauss. So it may very well feel weird for some people. Our body compositions are different and it could also simply be psychosomatic, YMMV.
CT uses ionizing radiation, kind of bad for you. Same goes if you’re in the Cath or IR lab for a procedure as the C Arm uses ionizing radiation too. There’s a reason why people use lead shields, thyroid guards and leaded glasses.
I’m not a doc but personally unless there’s a legit clinical rationale to using CT, C-Arm or X-ray over MRI or ultrasound (speed isn’t a reason but better and more accurate imaging is) I always choose the non ionizing radiation options. I’ve spent enough time for work in front of a C-Arm.
EDIT - hadn’t had my first spro of the day and forgot to mention if they have watch they probably have an iPhone.
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Apparently.
This is why we can't have nice things. They could harm some random idiot who forgets their medical condition.
And there was a 'toy' that was recalled because it was a bunch of small magnetic balls. Kids were swallowing them, and if they swallowed more than one, and they stayed together they passed without incident, but if they got separated, the balls could attract to each other through small bowel walls and obstruct blood flow, and 'kill' a section of it, not to mention the chances for perforation, which is not a benign thing at all.
So stupid hurts, unfortunately.
Humans aren't cows, where farmers pass magnets through them to attract and expel the various pieces of metal that they ingest. I don't know if they still have to do that, but it was an interesting show & tell item in elementary school.
I know. That’s why I used it as an example. The small rare earth magnet situation was a crap design and it put kids in the hospital. As someone who develops products you need to assess risks and think worst case ie save people from themselves and design accordingly. How will it fail? What will happen?
Unless a person is a physicist or cardiologist, no patient would ever consider the iphones magnet was strong enough to impact an ICD or Pacemaker, nor should they. Now it’s Apple responsibility to get the word out to every owner to notify them.
Apple dropped the ball, pacemakers and ICDs have been around a heck of a lot longer than iPhones. It has nothing to do with patients being stupid.
this is not true. when you get an ICD (and presumably a pacemaker, i only have an ICD lol), they specifically walk you through the precautions, including what happens when you put a magnet on it, and even 10 years ago they told me specifically not to put anything with a magnet in my pocket, including a cell phone of that era. it's frequently discussed on ICD patient support groups. of course, the precautions are WAAAAAAAY overkill, and most of the things they warn you against are perfectly safe for most people. CYA.
the magnetic feature of the device was explained to me in detail, and some EPs even give their patient a magnet in case of an unwarranted shock storm or other device failure, although this isn't exactly best practice, depending on the type of patient and disease. part of the design of the magnetic influence feature on these devices is the reality that if a patient was holding the magnet to his chest because they felt the therapy was unwarranted, but it turned out it WAS warranted, they'd pass out from lack of blood to the brain if the abnormal rhythm was dangerous... thus dropping the magnet and turning the primary function of the device back on.
getting an ICD is not a trivial thing. it's because you have a serious, life threatening heart condition. it costs tens of thousands of dollars, requires surgery, and the standard of care absolutely involves explaining it to the patient along with all the restrictions and advised limitations. they tell you not to go through the x-ray machines at the airport, they tell you to show the TSA people your ICD card so they don't put the wand directly over it, they tell you not to use any kind of body-composition scale, they tell you not to get an MRI, the list goes on.
Are you claiming that application of a magnet doesn’t deactivate the defibrillator function? Because that’s exactly how they work, and exactly what these physicians say.
'Deactivate' is possibly an overstatemet of what it does. As explained to me, it puts the device in something like a 'safe mode', where it stops trying to help. Once the magnet is removed, it continues to do what it was designed to do, but in the case it is over 'treating' the patient (won't stop shocking them) they should keep the magnet in place, and go to a hospital, or physicians office, to get it looked at. You make it seem like a magnet kills the device. It puts in in 'standby mode', if you prefer. 'Don't do anything' mode... Deactivation implies it needs some form of action to 'reactivate' it.
True, but Apple didn't 'drop the ball'. How many people have implanted devices that would be effected by the iPhone 12's magnets? I can't imagine the population being that huge. Not enough that a sizable percentage of the possible buyers would be statistically significant. PLUS, patients knowing the safeguards and to keep magnets away from the device, I'd imagine most people who have one will keep that in mind. *shrug* Plus it's not a permanent effect on their implant. There seems to be some overplay of this into something it's not. It's not a 'health crisis'. It's not a plot by evil, or stupid, Apple engineers. Good grief... Should the iPhones with MagSafe be required to have a warning label, like on ladders and lawnmowers? Are purchasers going to have to sign a statement they understand it has magnets in it?
Anyway...
Do you think that patients with AICDs are constantly being defibrillated to keep them alive?
see my post a few pages back: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...rs.2283675/page-5?post=29586159#post-29586159
You can't know that, but in fairness to your post sometimes the internet (ie MR posters) takes the worse case scenario which may not even be a prevalent issue and makes it the general use case. I am sure at some point in time someone's implanted devices will be affected by an iphone 12 and it will be doom and gloom for Apple, when we generally don't hear about implanted devices being affected by other means.
you don’t seem to understand how serious and big of a deal this is..it can literally kill people.and you cant expect all people (many of older age specially) to stop doing something so normal such as putting a phone in their shirt pocket.
phones normally cause no issue when they’re near a pacemaker but this magnet literally halts it function.
They used to say back in the days of the Nokia 3210 that you shouldn’t have a mobile phone anywhere near people with pacemakers. I thought this had never changed to be honest?
I do love how articles now have to say ‘medical doctors’ due to the fact there are millions of self professed Facebook doctors out there!
I do love how articles now have to say ‘medical doctors’ due to the fact there are millions of self professed Facebook doctors out there!
Maybe I'm missing something, but regardless of the medical effects, I have zero interest in a charger with a giant "magsafe" puck. For that amount of bulk I could almost carry around a small charging pad. At home I just drop my phone onto such pads, and when I'm on the road I take a cable and matchbox charger that together take up less space than that puck alone.
It's not as dangerous as you make it seem. https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...rs.2283675/page-5?post=29586159#post-29586159
I was a programmer/statistician in a medical research project. People don't know the extent of the protections for people involved as potential subjects in those studies. The project has to have a board that oversees the project, and they make sure that everything is as protective of the data and people involved as possible. It was also under the control of a university human subject committee. The minutia of the study is combed over for any change and any data that comes out of the study. Any incidents were brought to the board. The study I was involved in involved face to face meetings with patients, and not actually treating patients, but any study that involves 'treating' patients takes a lot of time to setup and everything is looked at continuously. Any badness that occurs can immediately stop the study, and it does happen. I was surprised that HFHS could get an iPhone 12 study off the ground so quickly. I think the one doc said they did the first experiment 'on their own', and then got approval for an actual study.
Some studies are flat out denied. 'You can't do that to subjects' is probably more common than you would imagine. A 'subject' objected to a question on the study, and it was kicked up and back down, and they had to change the questions they were asking. It seemed trivial, but everything is taken seriously connected to a medical study.
It's not like in the old movies where the 'mad scientist' injects unsuspecting people with some haphazard concocted gunk that turns them into monsters, and the bodies are dumped into a ditch and forgotten.