- Masimo, the company that sued Apple over patent infringement, has unveiled its own blood oxygen monitoring smartwatch called the Masimo Freedom.
- The Masimo Freedom is a health-focused device that can track blood oxygen levels, hydration index, respiration rate, pulse rate variability, pulse rate, steps, and detect falls.
- The smartwatch is currently in prototype stage and will be available for sale later this year at a price of $999.
Archive link: https://archive.ph/aOUXX
Not a fan of Apple but the number of people who would benefit from being able to monitor blood oxygenation is more meaningful to me than Masimo’s ability to sell thousand dollar smartwatches with its patent technology. Would be great if somehow this patent was bought out and made public domain so people outside the upper middle class could have an affordable way to track their vitals.
Apple can easily pay to license the technology and utilise it, and has had multiple chances to over the years at reasonable prices.
This result is only because Apple is run by some absolute morons who were happy to try and steal the tech but got caught with their pants down.
As for making it available to upper middle class, there’s plenty of devices out there already for monitoring blood oxygenation for under $100.
Xerox PARC intensifies
If you look at almost everything “iconic” that Apple has ever done they have “borrowed” or outright stolen from others. This is entirely on brand for Apple. They just ran up against someone who was willing to push back.
Apple is a strange choice as a champion for that. Their devices always have been notoriously overpriced.
I disagree. They don’t offer a low-end option, but their devices are fairly priced for what you get. People keep claiming they are overpriced but when you ask them for a cheaper alternative they always respond with something not even remotely comparable.
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Yet, no one offers anything comparable for less.
Have you looked? I mean, that question is rhetorical… No, you haven’t.
You should check out the competition. Samsung makes some great devices, razer makes some great devices. Even Google makes solid competition, though I prefer others over them.
Of course. Name one manufacturer that makes anything comparable to a MacBook Pro with M1
Unfortunately, I have intimate experience with all of those and more. I’m a mobile developer, we buy a lot of phones for testing purposes. We literally have an entire closet full of phones, every even remotely popular model, we’ve got it.
The stuff I’m working on is quite demanding, think computer vision related. We have to make it work on both iOS and Android and the latter is quite a pain in the ass. Device fragmentation is a bitch and performance is significantly below that of iOS devices, even on the high-end models (and we also have to support the low-end stuff). So on Android we have to choose less advanced algorithms, process at a lower internal resolution and frame rate, stuff like that.
I wish Android manufacturers got their shit together and catch up to Apple. It would make my life so much easier if they did, but for now there is a pretty big performance gap.
Compared to MacBook m1 pro, there are plenty of better options. Asus zephyrus lineup for example.
Yes, the m1 has less bugs with peripherals and software than the 2019 MacBook pro, but it is still an absolute pain to use for software dev
At my company devs can choose between a MacBook Pro and a equivalent Windows laptop. None of the devs chose Windows.
Is this really the hill you want to die on?
You’re saying they should have included the stand and raised the price of the monitor by $1k ?
The target audience for this monitor usually doesn’t need a stand, so it makes sense to sell it separately.
The stand costs like 15$ to produce (including machine time, material cost and shipping) I bet you can find dozens of chinese clones for under 100$ that function equally as well or better.
Oh my God
I can’t relate to the value you place in them. You couldn’t pay me to use Apple software.
With Windows or Linux, I spend a lot of my time operating the computer. On macOS I just spend my time on the tasks I was working on. The nice thing about Apple’s software is that it gets out of the way so you can focus on what actually matters.
That’s only true if the Apple way works for you. If not it keeps getting in the way in infuriating ways.
I once bought an apple laptop, it lasted a couple months before I ran back to the comfort and productivity of Linux and kde.
It can take a bit of getting used to. The main thing I had to unlearn is expecting things to be complicated, when they aren’t.
That’s debatable. And uncomplicated, assuming that it is, still didn’t mean comfortable.
This can be absolutely true the other way around too, depending on how proficient you are, and what you are used to or find intuitive. For me, macOS is extremely unintuitive, for example, while my fully personalized Linux setup allows me to do what I want. It is very subjective, ultimately.
I’m very proficient in Linux. I used to run it as a desktop about 15 years ago, before I was able to afford a Mac. Still run it on the server, both personally and professionally. It’s come a long way, but it’s not nearly as polished as macOS.
A desktop linux user is not someone “very proficient”
You ran an install script.
I’m very proficient. It’s my career.
It’s also part of my career, and has been for the last 15+ years. I mentioned desktop use because that was way more challenging back then than it is today. I first started using Linux personally in '98 with S.u.S.E. 5.3, then moved to using it as my main OS about a year later. Damn, that’s 25 years… in my mind it feels less. I must be getting old. Used it in a professional capacity on the server since graduation.
Polished doesn’t mean functional or ergonomic, which is something I value a lot. The ability to customize what I want easily is also something that Linux offers much more directly than macOS (which is the definition of getting in the way).
Again, I totally believe that for someone the Mac experience can be superior, but it depends on preference, use, habits and priorities.
What would you need to customize? IMO if you need to customize stuff that’s a failure. It should be right out of the box.
I can image that’s how it would be for many people.
I enjoy learning how to operating the computer but I’ve also become convinced software freedom aught to be valued the most.
I was the same, 20 years ago. I’m a professional developer, I already have a lot of complicated stuff I’m dealing with in the software I’m building. I don’t want to mess with anything unrelated as well.
4 years on macbooks as a software dev. Haven’t seen a more annoying OS for power users than OSX. The Apple software is constantly in the way, breaking things or crashing because you plugged in a non apple certified keyboard.
Sure dude.
Yup. Also some kernel panics due to non compatible DP adapters. They are picky machines. Those issues were with the 2019 i7 mac pro. My current M1 has issues with certain usb-c docks
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MWUG2LL/A/pro-stand
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I think it’s hilarious that you show proof of how overpriced Apple products are and there are still fanboys that down vote you.
I think it’s sad. This corpo worship results in higher prices for all of us. Apple created this weird pseudo religion that makes other vendors (like Samsung) raising their prices more acceptable while competition should actually put prices under pressure.
Which apple product doesn’t have a chaper alternative?
All of them. Every cheaper alternative is just a crappier product that cheaper because it’s simply not as good.
I’ll take my Garmin over you apple toys any day
Can a Garmin even run apps? It’s a completely different product.
There’s been a Garmin app store for twice as long as Apple has been making watches.
https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/
It’s not at all a different product. It’s a direct competitor who makes a superior product.
Again – I’ve had a smart watch that does all the shit apple watch does, for half a decade before apple even thought about it. And mine can go a month without charging.
Define superior. Only Apple makes Smartwatch SoCs with any kind of decent performance, other manufacturers like Qualcomm don’t put a lot of effort into the market segment and just put an old CPU core in a low power package and call it a day. It’s simply not profitable enough for them.
He’s full of shit, and the people upvoting him don’t know anything about Garmin watches. Garmin doesn’t compete with apple. They don’t want to compete with apple. Garmin doesn’t take the kitchen sink approach that apple/Google/Samsung do. They focus on fitness and battery life, they’re competing with Fitbit. This liar is pulling the old “I like it, therefore it’s the best at everything” trope. He’s a child. Ignore him.
Like the thousand dollar basic monitor stand?
Or comparing similarly specced macs vs PCs (I bet that’s why they moved away from x86 again, because it was too obvious how overpriced they were when the specs could be compared 1:1).
The thousand dollar monitor stand is not a consumer product and simply sold separately because not a lot of people are going to need it. The monitor it’s meant for is actually a lot cheaper than comparable monitors.
In the x86 era similarly specced PCs had similar prices or were even more expensive. The thing about Mac’s is that while you can get a PC that has some better specs for less, you couldn’t get anything that matched all the specs. It may have had a faster CPU, but would come in a crappy plastic case, weigh a ton and run out of battery in 30 seconds. Or it ran forever on a single charge but had a CPU that was slow as molasses.
No, it’s because x86 is an overcomplicated mess with terrible performance/watt. x86 CPUs run hot, drain your battery and still don’t perform great. Apple’s M series SoC’s are amazing. A clean, modern ISA, high IPC, low power usage, low heat. It doesn’t matter if my MacBook Pro (M1 Max )runs on battery or wall power, it’s always blazing fast. It has insane battery life, does not get hot and is completely silent.
I was referring to the desktop space. Apple is a lot more competitive in the laptop space (unless you’re a gamer), but their desktop specs always made me laugh at the price they ask for it. Granted, I haven’t looked recently, but any time I’ve looked in the past, their price seems about 1k too high for what they are offering.
But yeah, x86 laptops are generally a shitshow. I had a decent personal one, though that was used more like a very portable desktop than a true laptop. That one just stopped charging one day (though its timing was impeccable because I was already in the process of moving my files to a new desktop I had just built, just had to pull the drives out to get the rest of it). And a cheap one I threw Linux on for school that did the job. But my first work laptop at my current job was garbage and the current one is relatively better, but also has a bunch of issues, enough that I don’t think very highly of HP even ignoring their printer bs.
Is that still even a thing? Between hybrid working and flex desking, who still uses desktop PC’s?
Ah, okay then. Have a nice day :)
They notoriously sell older components and technologies in their brand new computers.
I have one I got for free that was made in 2020. It’s a MacBook Air. It has 8gb of RAM… I don’t even know how they found RAM chips that small in 2020. It freezes every day when all I’m doing is running a web browser. This computer was $1,000 at the time it launched.
The base amount of RAM is a bit low, I agree. But why would you order one with less RAM than you need? I have an M1 Max with 64GB and it just flies. No matter what I throw at it, it stays fast and responsive.
Them: theyve always been over priced, here’s an example where their 1k device had a pathetically small ram for the cost
You: well why didn’t you spend MORE to get a FUNCTIONING device, hmmm?
My cell phone in 2020 had more than 8g of ram and cost the same as that laptop, no excuses
My phone in 2019 had 50% more ram and cost 50% less.
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Apple also holds over 95,500 patents. I will never get why some people defend this crazy company. They make underperforming computers and sell them for wayyy over their value.
Please list here all competitors to the MacBook Air in the same price point:
Battery life must be equal or better, no extra points will be given for massive CPU/GPU power. I’ll wait.
LOL. Cherry-picking much? You corpo fanboys are so pathetic.
Nope, I just need a laptop with a 10 hour reliable battery life for work. YMMV of course.
Copyright and patent laws need to die.
Only idiots think that work wouldn’t get done without them.