Health Canada has cleared the ECG app and irregular heart rhythm notifications on the Apple Watch Series 4, suggesting that both features will make their much-anticipated debut in Canada in the near future.
As spotted by the blog iPhone in Canada and confirmed by MacRumors, Health Canada issued active licenses for both features on May 16. The regulatory agency classifies the Apple Watch Series 4 as a Class II medical device, placing it in a "low-to-medium risk" category alongside the likes of contact lenses.
To view the licenses, navigate to the Health Canada search page and search for Apple based on company name.
With clearance from Health Canada, Apple could expand the ECG app to Canada in either watchOS 5.3 or watchOS 6, the latter of which should be unveiled at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference next month.
Apple Watch Series 4 users can generate an ECG waveform in just 30 seconds by placing their finger on the Digital Crown.
Electrodes built into the Digital Crown and the back crystal work together with the ECG app to read your heart's electrical signals. Simply touch the Digital Crown to generate an ECG waveform in just 30 seconds. The ECG app can indicate whether your heart rhythm shows signs of atrial fibrillation — a serious form of irregular heart rhythm — or sinus rhythm, which means your heart is beating in a normal pattern.
Wednesday February 19, 2025 8:02 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple today introduced the iPhone 16e, its newest entry-level smartphone. The device succeeds the third-generation iPhone SE, which has now been discontinued.
The iPhone 16e features a larger 6.1-inch OLED display, up from a 4.7-inch LCD on the iPhone SE. The display has a notch for Face ID, and this means that Apple no longer sells any iPhones with a Touch ID fingerprint button, marking the ...
Tuesday February 18, 2025 12:02 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Over the years, Apple has switched from an aluminum frame to a stainless steel frame to a titanium frame for its highest-end iPhones. And now, it has been rumored that Apple will go back to using aluminum for three out of four iPhone 17 models.
In an investor note with research firm GF Securities, obtained by MacRumors this week, Apple supply chain analyst Jeff Pu said the iPhone 17, iPhone...
Thursday February 20, 2025 5:06 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Now that Apple has announced its new more affordable iPhone 16e, our thoughts turn to what else we are expecting from the company this spring.
There are three product categories that we are definitely expecting to get upgraded before spring has ended. Keep reading to learn what they are. If we're lucky, Apple might make a surprise announcement about a completely new product category.
M4...
Wednesday February 19, 2025 11:38 am PST by Juli Clover
Following the launch of the iPhone 16e, Apple updated its iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia pages to give a narrower timeline on when the next updates are set to launch.
All three pages now state that new Apple Intelligence features and languages will launch in early April, an update from the more broader April timeframe that Apple provided before. The next major point updates will be iOS ...
Thursday February 13, 2025 8:07 am PST by Joe Rossignol
In a social media post today, Apple CEO Tim Cook teased an upcoming "launch" of some kind scheduled for Wednesday, February 19.
"Get ready to meet the newest member of the family," he said, with an #AppleLaunch hashtag.
The post includes a short video with an animated Apple logo inside a circle.
Cook did not provide an exact time for the launch, or share any other specific details, so...
Apple today announced its first custom cellular modem with the name "C1," debuting in the all-new iPhone 16e.
The new modem contributes to the iPhone 16e's power efficiency, giving it the longest battery life of any iPhone with a 6.1-inch display, such as the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16.
Expanding the benefits of Apple silicon, C1 is the first modem designed by Apple and the most...
Tuesday February 18, 2025 8:46 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple is permanently closing its retail store at the Northbrook Court shopping mall in the Chicago area. The company confirmed the upcoming closure today in a statement, but it has yet to provide a closing date for the location.
Apple Northbrook opened in 2005, and the store moved to a larger space in the mall in 2017.
Apple confirmed that affected employees will continue to work for the...
Health Canada indicated several times via twitter replies, and as recently as in March 2019, that it had not received an application from Apple. So unless that's a lie, who knows.
Not necessarily a lie at all, but as in most bureaucracies, sometimes the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. The PR folks who are hired to manage the Twitter account are unlikely to be aware of confidential regulatory filings, I would think.
At some point in the decades to come, maybe people will stop believing everything they read on the Internet :eek: But probably not. As long as it confirms their own opinion, many are eager to believe anything they read. If it’s the truth—but they don’t like it—it’s “fake news”.
I'm 46 and pending surgery for a major heart condition. This is one of the reasons I decided to spring for the 4 when I did. The heart rate monitor, EKG, and fall detection were major selling points for me. I mean, I love the tech (Apple pay, using the watch for texts, the info you can get from the on screen complications, etc) but this was what put me over the edge.
It's not the same as a doctor visit, but a 1 lead EKG every day is still more monitoring than my condition would get short of being held in a hospital environment. And if I go down, I know someone is coming as it reports my location) to my wife, and a friend. I use the app to list my medical condition and medications (my heart is half of it, my liver is the other). These were big selling points.
Sometimes I get tachycardia, and usually it passes. It's nice to be able to check and inform my cardiologist of what happened along with a current BP reading. This way, I know I'm not gonna plotz before I get surgery.
Sometimes I get tachycardia, and usually it passes. It's nice to be able to check and inform my cardiologist of what happened along with a current BP reading. This way, I know I'm not gonna plotz before I get surgery.
Plus you can export a PDF of your ECG reading to show your doctor. I know it's nowhere near as good as the readouts from a doctor's office but it's a heck of a lot better than having nothing but your verbal description of how you felt.
