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Regardless of the soundness of the logic of your reply, the way that idea would be seen by darker-skinned communities (especially like the African-american comm

Regardless of the soundness of the logic of your reply, the way that idea would be seen by darker-skinned communities (especially like the African-american community in the US that is highly affected by DM-II) would be something like "Apple made a racist product and wants black people to die". Additionally, if the device only works on non-sweating, not moving, healthy, white/asian office workers out of bright sunlight who have not recently eaten nor have gone more than 5 hours without eating, it's not really something that helps anyone who would need it.

criddell 9y ago
People with darker skin aren't idiots. Current products like Fitbit trackers already work poorly on dark skinned people, so it's not anything new. I don't think that community is going to call Apple (or, more generally, physics) racist. Also, I think you underestimate the market size of light skinned office workers with significant disposable income that don't need blood glucose monitoring but want it anyway. I'm one of them. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple launched multiple devices. The $500-$600 watch would give blood glucose trends or some other derivative information. The $2000-$3000 watch would be the one that gives a medically useful measurement. They could iterate quickly on one and work through the ponderous regulation with the other. Maybe they would even license the technology to Medtronics or some other medical device company and let somebody else deal with the headaches.
- Balgair 9y ago
  Wait, why would you want blood-glucose monitoring that is not medically proven to work or be reliable? Like, yeah, maybe it works in a very limited set of situations, but that's the same as a broken clock that only tells the right time twice a day; you'd never know when the monitoring device is working 'correctly'. It would be a random number generator, effectively, if it was not proofed. Besides, if you aren't a diabetic, why would you care? The human body is highly variable, from person to person, and even inside of a person after meals. All it would do, if it were accurate 'enough', is say some number that you can't control. Like, you aren't gonna take any insulin shots to mess with it, that would likely kill a normal person. I can't see any actual use for a healthy person. Trying to 'game' that (assumed reliable) number would just put you into a coma; we're supposed to have spikes in the concentration, that's how vertebrates work. Playing 'what-if' games with number would be like Russian Roulette, each experiment may kill you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_sugar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_sugar http://www.webmd.com/diabetes/daily-control-17/slideshow-blood-sugar-swings http://www.webmd.com/diabetes/daily-control-17/slideshow-blo... http://www.everydayhealth.com/type-2-diabetes/symptoms/surprising-causes-of-blood-sugar-swings/#02 http://www.everydayhealth.com/type-2-diabetes/symptoms/surpr... Also, I'm not saying that people with dark skin are idiots. I'm saying that the 'optics' of Apple releasing that thing aren't 'good' as a large percentage of their 'customers' that have DM-II are dark-skinned, though not all by any means.
  - criddell 9y ago
    Perfect is the enemy of good. My Fitbit counts steps, but it isn't all that accurate from an absolute standpoint. Still, I find the day-to-day variances interesting. Same goes for blood glucose monitoring. I'd like to see if I can find correlations between my mood, productivity, sleep, fasting, etc... and my blood glucose levels. Like step tracking, the absolute number doesn't matter. Cook has already said that blood glucose measuring would be useful for people before they have diabetes. That's what makes me think it isn't necessarily a medical device they are building. At least not for version 1. The last article is one of the things that would be super interesting for me to see. How do blood glucose levels change when I drink a diet soda vs water, for example.
    - Balgair 9y ago
      The problem is that the number you are getting is useless, there is no relative measure. Yes, maybe for you and for your particular fitbit recently, you may believe hat it 'works'. But you are very likely an outlier, there is no reason to believe some device like the glucose one will work for you or just about anyone else. The tech is essentially vaporware. Also, giving people even psuedo-medical diagnoses is just irresponsible; either it works or it does not. You can't tolerate psuedo-random number generators with health in any way. This is why 23andMe has to licence their genetic counselors on what the results mean, as the data can be very easily misunderstood by even very well educated people. Harvard just released a study on the fitbit, even the best of them were far off on something as simple as calorie counting: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2017/05/fitness-trackers-accurately-measure-heart-rate-but-not-calories-burned.html https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2017/05/fitness-track...

criddell 9y ago

People with darker skin aren't idiots. Current products like Fitbit trackers already work poorly on dark skinned people, so it's not anything new. I don't think that community is going to call Apple (or, more generally, physics) racist. Also, I think you underestimate the market size of light skinned office workers with significant disposable income that don't need blood glucose monitoring but want it anyway. I'm one of them. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple launched multiple devices. The $500-$600 watch would give blood glucose trends or some other derivative information. The $2000-$3000 watch would be the one that gives a medically useful measurement. They could iterate quickly on one and work through the ponderous regulation with the other. Maybe they would even license the technology to Medtronics or some other medical device company and let somebody else deal with the headaches.

Balgair 9y ago
Wait, why would you want blood-glucose monitoring that is not medically proven to work or be reliable? Like, yeah, maybe it works in a very limited set of situations, but that's the same as a broken clock that only tells the right time twice a day; you'd never know when the monitoring device is working 'correctly'. It would be a random number generator, effectively, if it was not proofed. Besides, if you aren't a diabetic, why would you care? The human body is highly variable, from person to person, and even inside of a person after meals. All it would do, if it were accurate 'enough', is say some number that you can't control. Like, you aren't gonna take any insulin shots to mess with it, that would likely kill a normal person. I can't see any actual use for a healthy person. Trying to 'game' that (assumed reliable) number would just put you into a coma; we're supposed to have spikes in the concentration, that's how vertebrates work. Playing 'what-if' games with number would be like Russian Roulette, each experiment may kill you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_sugar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_sugar http://www.webmd.com/diabetes/daily-control-17/slideshow-blood-sugar-swings http://www.webmd.com/diabetes/daily-control-17/slideshow-blo... http://www.everydayhealth.com/type-2-diabetes/symptoms/surprising-causes-of-blood-sugar-swings/#02 http://www.everydayhealth.com/type-2-diabetes/symptoms/surpr... Also, I'm not saying that people with dark skin are idiots. I'm saying that the 'optics' of Apple releasing that thing aren't 'good' as a large percentage of their 'customers' that have DM-II are dark-skinned, though not all by any means.
- criddell 9y ago
  Perfect is the enemy of good. My Fitbit counts steps, but it isn't all that accurate from an absolute standpoint. Still, I find the day-to-day variances interesting. Same goes for blood glucose monitoring. I'd like to see if I can find correlations between my mood, productivity, sleep, fasting, etc... and my blood glucose levels. Like step tracking, the absolute number doesn't matter. Cook has already said that blood glucose measuring would be useful for people before they have diabetes. That's what makes me think it isn't necessarily a medical device they are building. At least not for version 1. The last article is one of the things that would be super interesting for me to see. How do blood glucose levels change when I drink a diet soda vs water, for example.
  - Balgair 9y ago
    The problem is that the number you are getting is useless, there is no relative measure. Yes, maybe for you and for your particular fitbit recently, you may believe hat it 'works'. But you are very likely an outlier, there is no reason to believe some device like the glucose one will work for you or just about anyone else. The tech is essentially vaporware. Also, giving people even psuedo-medical diagnoses is just irresponsible; either it works or it does not. You can't tolerate psuedo-random number generators with health in any way. This is why 23andMe has to licence their genetic counselors on what the results mean, as the data can be very easily misunderstood by even very well educated people. Harvard just released a study on the fitbit, even the best of them were far off on something as simple as calorie counting: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2017/05/fitness-trackers-accurately-measure-heart-rate-but-not-calories-burned.html https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2017/05/fitness-track...