- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmit.online
Owners of the FreeStyle Libre 3, one of Abbott Laboratories’ flagship glucose monitors, received an email this week warning them to “disable automatic system updates on your iPhone” because the new operating system’s StandBy Mode and Assistive Access Mode “may impact your ability to receive time-sensitive notifications including glucose alarms and notifications indicating that alarms are unavailable.”
“Key Steps to Optimize your FreeStyle Libre System on iOS 17,” the email reads. “While our teams are working quickly to verify and confirm compatibility, we recommend that you disable automatic operating system updates on the smartphone using the mentioned apps. Please check the compatibility guide on myfreestyle.com before the new operating system is installed.”
Abbott is telling customers who have already upgraded to disable StandBy Mode, which activates the iPhone’s Lock Screen while it’s charging and placed on its side. They are also being advised to turn off “Assistive Access” mode, an accessibility mode for people with disabilities. Abbott says that this mode “will impact your ability to activate a sensor, modify your alarm settings, or receive glucose alarm notifications from our apps.”
Abbott writes on its website that failure to take action when users get an alarm, or failure to use the device “as instructed in labeling may result in missing a severe low or high glucose event and/or making a treatment decision, resulting in injury.”
Incompetence.
That’s literally the only answer. My guess is they can find a fix which even further underscores their incompetence at not having it ready at launch. I’ll give indie devs and small companies a pass on not having day one support for a new OS but large corps and especially medical apps like this have no excuse.
I used to work at a mobile app test automation company and there is an alternative answer: apple is the fucking worst. They used to frequently make additional changes that are not in the beta just before release and other companies have no warning until its live. I remember when ios8 released in between the final beta and general release they ripped out the entire api our platform used to interface with phones. We had to rewrite iOS support from scratch in like a month post release. It was a disaster.