[VLM]

The reputation for enforced obsolescence and extremely high prices will be an issue for all but the richest hospitals.

The biggest area of improvement in health care is at the cheaper end. Many people die annually from being unable to afford the $2.50 it costs for malaria treatment, or life saving vaccines.

The side dish problem is vaccines are insanely profitable; every dollar spent in the US on vaccines supposedly saves fifteen bucks of health care expense. I've seen numbers as low as $10 and as high as $15000. The problem is some very populous political and economic regimes worldwide are so unstable that even 1500% rate of return investments, which would seem a no brainer to fund in the west, are impossible without massive external western involvement. In a system that dysfunctional, malaria might not be the biggest problem, nor incredibly expensive and short lived apple iHealth devices. We've tried allowing infinite immigration from failed states into western states; that didn't help either. Just brain drain's the failed states while exploding welfare expenses in the western states.

[david-cako]

or... as with many other technologies, Apple leading the way will subsidize the proof of concept for everyone else. The iPhone didn’t stop people in poorer countries from getting mobile service and smartphones for pennies on the dollar. In fact, it did the exact opposite. 3rd world countries went and built better mobile networks than we had in the US at the time.

Moreover, if the existing medical industry is evidence of anything, prices are jacked up in developed countries to foot the bill of R&D, and the same medications are sold elsewhere for next to nothing.

Apple giving away health technology to disadvantaged communities seems like a good next step. Perhaps existing medical companies aren’t as incentivized to do that because they don’t have the shiny brand to advertise.