eXtensions - Wednesday 16 June 2025
By Graham K. Rogers
Sleep Apnea feature on Apple Watch now available here and other countries. Potential for pregnancy detection in Apple Health data. The decline and end of some camera companies contain lessons for modern industry. Apple financial report due at the end of the mont: doomsayers active. AI writing; and a Gemini experience.
In response to comments on home diagnosis in Nature, I mentioned last time that the use of a full data set in the Health app - from the Watch, linked external devices and manual data entries - help me develop a picture of my current health situation. Over the years it has taken a while for some features to appear, for example ECG and Sleep Apnea. The former was held up by the reticence of local medical authorities, but eventually became available. I was unsure why the Sleep Apnea notifications were unavailable (see below), particularly as I have been using other Sleep features via the Health app and a 3rd party app (Sleep Cycle) for a few years now.
This week, Juli Clover informs us that the Sleep Apnea feature has been made available in several more countries, including Thailand. Marcus Mendes (9to5Mac) adds that "they require approval from local health regulators before being rolled out regionally". He also mentions the arrival of hearing features for the AirPods Pro2, including testing on the iPhone or iPad.
I went straight to the Watch app on my iPhone and set up the Sleep Apnea feature. It had previously been blocked, but not this time. About two-thirds of the way down the Sleep settings page is the Sleep Apnea section that has the words (in orange), "Set Up Notifications in Health. That gives access to a brief notice, followed by an explanation of how this works with a couple of warnings. Once this is done, the feature is available, although no readings will be shown for about 30 days while the input is analyzed. As the Sleep Cycle app reports (and records) my snoring, I expect I will have something to look forward to in the middle of August.
|
|
|
|
I also noted last time that when there is a change in the metrics, this helps me recognise problems and I am able to access early, proper medical care. William Gallagher (Apple Insider) comments on an as-yet to be peer reviewed academic article from Apple researchers, in which the quality input from a variety of sensors on the Watch, could be used to detect pregnancy.
Pregnancy "results in substantial changes in both the underlying physiology of an individual, as tracked by raw sensors, and substantial changes to an individual's behavior, as measured by derived metrics like exercise minutes, step counts, and gait." On that last point, the analysis of gait is such that my Apple Watch has been warning me recently that I need to be careful as indications suggest I may be heading for a fall. This may be partly due to a move to a new condo where I am still finding my way around and making odd direction changes. It is that sort of analysis of so many parameters that the sensors gather minute by minute that will be able to predict problems to come, or perhaps pregnancy.
When I started taking photographs, all cameras used film. When digital cameras became available commercially, I took to this new technology immediately with a series of basic cameras initially, eventually working my way through a series of Nikon cameras up to the D850. I am still using this, but I have also returned to film. So far this year, I have taken over 220 photographs with my Hasselblad and another 30 or so with a Rolleiflex twin reflex camera. Since returning (in part) to film, I have bought a few other cameras, some of which are from manufacturers that have long disappeared: Pentacon, Voigtlander, Bronica and others. I rather liked the Bronica which I gave to a former student on graduation as he had become interested in film.
|
|
This week, Alex Cooke (Fstoppers) wrote an interesting article on lost camera brands that included Bronica and other well-known brands: Kodak, Polaroid, Contax, and Konica Minolta. I had a Kodak 110 camera while I was in the USA in the mid-1980s; and my last SLR camera before going digital was an excellent 35mm Minolta. Despite inventing digital photography, Kodak failed to capitalize on this and went bankrupt, but have since emerged from that and now produce several popular films. Cooke outlines the reasons each company failed and summarises the main problem areas: They assumed that the behaviour of photographers would not change; that their technical prowess would win the day; and that the film prowess would transfer to their digital branding.
|
|
To these misplaced assumptions that are applicable to organizations today, he adds three basic lessons that could also be applied: companies must disrupt or cannibalize their own products before the competition does; they should focus on a superior user experience, rather than technical excellence; niche products are preferable to trying to beat the mass market.
As I predicted, the naysayers are out in force with dire predictions for Apple, helped along by the announcement that Jeff WIlliams is to retire. Despite Apple's care in corporate matters, some are repeating the idea that there is no succession in place should anything happen to Tim Cook, although several names are being put forward. This is absurd. Although Cook has no intention of moving on just yet, like anyone past a certain age, he should be aware that stuff happens unexpectedly as age creeps up and there are enough corporate nail-biters at Apple to have made preparations for any such event. The idea of a committee is not realistic, apart from the point that this is what the current CEO already works with. All those executive vice presidents at Apple do have jobs concerned with running the company, and reporting to Cook when necessary, without involving him in the day to day operations of each department.
There are some runors I do like, and Joe Rossignol has mentioned again a move that Apple could take regarding WiFi capabilities and its new C-series chips. I still use the last Apple Airport Express router (connected to the local internet provider device) for my home internet use. It has the capacity to deal with the internet speeds provided, and within the small home environment, with a limited number of devices, mega-transfer speeds are not essential.
Of course, I would like the latest device, but what is on the market here does not suit me. I did buy a modern router, but that was not suitable, particularly with regard to security and the ability to change passwords (the software did not allow changes to take effect). Out came the Airport Express, and I was up and running within minutes. Like many, I wish Apple would make such a device again.
Unfortunately, perhaps, one online publication continues with its negative reporting on Apple's CEO with a couple of articles that include the same arguments as before. They don't like Tim Cook there. They never have. How sad to wake up every day with such anger. Others, such as Dennis Sellers (AppleWorld Today) look at Gurman's article and interpret it in a different way.
Shares have been hit this year mainly because of Apple's investment in China and the current president's obsession with that country's trade. Despite the allegation that this was a misstep, Apple has worked hard in the last few years to reduce its reliance on China, shifting production to other countries, notably in Southeast Asia and South Asia. These have now also been hit by fluctuating tariffs. Not exactly the stability that companies need to work effectively. This is out of Tim Cook's hands.
I am confident that Apple is not twiddling its thumbs on Siri and AI and that work is under way to make improvements. This week, the third betas for Apple's coming OS updates have been seeded to developers. Betas of the current operating systems (like macOS 15.6) are also being seeded this week. Hartley Charlton (MacRumors) reports on a note from a couple of analysts who write that it is time Cook was replaced, but the timing is suspicious as we approach the Q3 2025 financial report, where there are bound to be pointed questions about a succession. And then there is the Macalope. . . .
Let me add a brief note on AI use in academic writing. When I grumble about the AI content in journal articles or thesis work I have been asked to look at, I am told, Well, the university allows it if there is an acknowledgement. Publishers do too. My problem is that when I am given this content to check (and put right) there are so many problems that the non-native speaking students do not see. Their experience of English content is limited so they miss the problems in the word salads they submit as their own work.
As icing on this defective cake, I was asked to check a PR handout this week at the university. These are prepared in Thai, using AI and then put through Google Translate and I am asked to fix the English. One I saw this week was different: word choice, style, sentence structure.
I messaged the lady who sent it to me and she confirmed that this was the first time she had used Gemini, the new Google chatbot. This clearly did not know the meaning of some of the words it was using. One glaring example was the use of concurrently with regard to three different people making presentations. As I rewrite these PR texts anyway to make them read like realistic English rather than official Thai, this was easy to fix, but we have both learned something about AI use.
Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. After 3 years writing a column in the Life supplement, he is now no longer associated with the Bangkok Post. He can be followed on X (@extensions_th). The RSS feed for the articles is http://www.extensions.in.th/ext_link.xml - copy and paste into your feed reader.
For further information, e-mail to
Back to
eXtensions
Back to
Home Page