Apple Accused Of Monopolizing Heart Rate Technology For The Apple Watch

While the Apple Watch comes with support for apps, for the most part the watch actually does a pretty good job on its own. The built-in apps that Apple provides already gives us a lot of functionality like tracking our exercise, alarms and timers, and also the ability to read our heart rates.

However, AliveCor isn’t too thrilled by the “monopoly” that Apple has. The company has recently filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple that alleges that the company is engaging in “monopolistic conduct”. Basically it seems that AliveCor isn’t happy that Apple doesn’t not include third-party heart rate analysis for the Apple Watch, which they feel has harmed the company, patients, and consumers.

This stems from AliveCor’s KardiaBand, a third-party accessory that could double as an ECG. However, Apple later debuted their own ECG tool in the Apple Watch along with their own set of notifications, and AliveCor claims that Apple changed the functionality of watchOS to “sabotage” the KardiaBand and other competing heart rate analysis apps so that it would not work or be as accurate compared to Apple’s own offerings.

This is actually not the first time that AliveCor has taken issue with the Apple Watch. Earlier this year, the company had approached the US ITC in hopes of getting the Apple Watch banned over its ECG feature where they claim that Apple had infringed upon their patent.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Gadgets
Tags: Apple Watch, Health, Legal, Smartwatch, Social Hit, Wearable Tech