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Wild Rumor of Apple EarPods with Biometric Sensors Has Roots in Apple's Research

jsalda said:
My thoughts exactly. The fact that this patent was applied for in 2007 BEFORE the iPhone was even released, shows exactly how far Apple is looking ahead. 7 years later, biometrics is becoming all the rage.
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To me it looks like Apple is a patent troll that hasn't made anything with the patent and waiting for some other company to bring biometric electronics out then sue them.
 
kas23 said:
I understand that a blood glucometer or a halter monitor via a cellphone may sound cool, but the examples you provide represents niche products. Only a small fraction of the population would benefit from these abilities.

The problem arises when Apple takes these products to the masses. Any physician on here will tell you that these products are going to lead to a mess. If you take biometrics or blood tests or any test on the human body, there's going to be a not insignificant number of false positives. You apply this to over 100 million people and it's going to be a healthcare logistical nightmare. In order to do screening of a disease, it needs to be a fairly prevalent disease. If not, then doctors will spend their whole day working up mainly false positives.

And for a company that can't even produce a flawless fingerprint scanner, a technology that's been around for years, how are they going to fair with other biometrics? Measuring bodily functions and interpreting the results can be a very tricky business and I don't see a company whose major product is a cellphone doing anywhere near an adequate job.
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I think you need to make up your mind about whether these products would be of use to almost nobody, or would cause a kind of medical apocalypse, because these arguments essentially cancel each other out.
 
This is about as wild as you can get with MR. :)

Ear-pods that measure heart and blood pressure.

Either Apple's moving to a healthy-type company (blood pressure, monitoring etc) all in their products as of late, or somethings up here..

So there will be multiple ways to do the same thing, iWatch, or these "ear-pods" which needs a name change.

These things look ridiculously convenient. (hearing, and monitoring at the same time). However apart from that, they look like ear-pods we use today (minus the sensors)
 
rolphi said:
Dave, I don't see what you said has to do with what CausticPuppy said.
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Because apparently if Samsung were to release something like this its classed as copying. LG have already created this but no-ones throwing the copying remark around at Apple.

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Rogifan said:
So Samsung has scheduled a "health" event in San Francisco just a few days before WWDC. Their obsession with being first/beating Apple (and Google) to the punch is pathetic, laughable. And the timing is dumb because once WWDC keynote happens no one will be talking about Samsung.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/01/samsung-plans-an-event-around-health-for-may-28th/#comments
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Oh come on, quit with this copying rubbish.

Samsung has fitness built into the Galaxy S4, Galaxy S5 and the Gear Fit.
So far Apple has released zero fitness devices.
 
Dave.UK said:
Oh come on, quit with this copying rubbish.

Samsung has fitness built into the Galaxy S4, Galaxy S5 and the Gear Fit.
So far Apple has released zero fitness devices.
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Err, Apple has had the Nike+ sensor for years. And the iPod Nano has included a pedometer since its fifth incarnation.
 
Dave.UK said:
Because apparently if Samsung were to release something like this its classed as copying. LG have already created this but no-ones throwing the copying remark around at Apple.

You went on a long journey by yourself on that one. The original poster said he might leave Andorid over this feature, and then to that was replied, Samsung will have their version in a few months.

No one brought up copying but you.
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rolphi said:
Dave.UK said:
Because apparently if Samsung were to release something like this its classed as copying. LG have already created this but no-ones throwing the copying remark around at Apple.

You went on a long journey by yourself on that one. The original poster said he might leave Andorid over this feature, and then to that was replied, Samsung will have their version in a few months.

No one brought up copying but you.
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Oh come off it! So where has Samsung announced these "Gear Buds" which will be available in two months then?

We both know what the poster was insinuating.
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macfacts said:
To me it looks like Apple is a patent troll that hasn't made anything with the patent and waiting for some other company to bring biometric electronics out then sue them.
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Macfacts clearly isn't interested in facts. What companies have they sued in a market where they don't have their own product in it?
 
Atleast 3 companies doing the same thing and one university.

Apple has a patent

LG has this hear rate monitoring earphone product in development. They showed it at CES.

Motorola also has this patent for ear phone health metrics.

And a university in US., source technologyreview

Its good, finally some decent looking and unobtrusive health products that people wont be shy to wear.
 
IJ Reilly said:
I think you need to make up your mind about whether these products would be of use to almost nobody, or would cause a kind of medical apocalypse, because these arguments essentially cancel each other out.
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You're not reading what I'm writing. These functions will be actually useful to only a small fraction of consumers. That won't stop EVERY consumers from needlessly trying to use it and being mislead by faulty results. For example, if 100 million people strap on a halter monitor with having an extremely low pretest probability of having an arrhythmia, you're going to see an inordinate amount of false positives.
 
kas23 said:
You're not reading what I'm writing. These functions will be actually useful to only a small fraction of consumers. That won't stop EVERY consumers from needlessly trying to use it and being mislead by faulty results. For example, if 100 million people strap on a halter monitor with having an extremely low pretest probability of having an arrhythmia, you're going to see an inordinate amount of false positives.
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I've read it. What I am seeing are huge and unfounded assumptions, in support of basically a worst case scenario, no matter what the product does and how it does it.
 
Technarchy said:
Speak for yourself. They are my fav workout headphones. They actually stay in the ear, sound good, and don't cause "ear fatigue" even after a couple of hours.
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Maybe I have goofy ears. :mad:

They irritate my ears within 20 minutes, to the point where they hurt.
 
Technarchy said:
That's how I was with the old iPhone headphones before the EarPods. Killed my ears within 30 minutes.
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It's not a huge loss for me anyway. I use JayBird BlueBuds X's at the gym and JF3 Freedom for yardwork and iPad use.

I am surprised that Apple doesn't manufacturer their own Bluetooth earbuds.
 
webbuzz said:
It's not a huge loss for me anyway. I use JayBird BlueBuds X's at the gym and JF3 Freedom for yardwork and iPad use.

I am surprised that Apple doesn't manufacturer their own Bluetooth earbuds.
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What's your feedback on those? Worth the money?
 
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