techcrunch.com — Amy Tenderich writes one of (if not the) most influential blogs about diabetes, Diabetes Mine. Noting the news today about Apple selling its 100 millionth iPod and praising the exceptional industrial design of Apple products, she asks for Apple?s help in designing better medical devices, particularly blood glucose monitors and insulin pumps.
Apr 10, 2007 View in Crawl 4
thecosasApr 11, 2007
if you read the article, it does not suggest that apple make a pump.What it does suggest is that they lend some time to the DESIGN of a pump, or maybe hold a contest. From the article: We have begun by brainstorming a number of actions that you and/or Apple could take to jumpstart this discussion: * Sponsor a contest by Apple Inc. for best-designed med device from an independent party, and the winning item will receive a makeover from Jonathan Ive himself * Conduct a ?Med Model Challenge?: the Apple design team takes several existing medical devices and demonstrates how to ?pimp? them to be more useful and cool * Establish Apple Med Design School ? offer a course on consumer design concepts to selected engineers from leading pharma companies
meatmcguffinApr 11, 2007
1: Apple designs for look 1st and function 5th.Don't be so stupid/fanboyish. Both those things are not mutually exclusive and Apple knows this. Give one example where Apple has sacrificed functionality for looks and i'll give you a hundred where they havn't. I''ll start you off :Apple computers have power connectors that can't pull a laptop off a desk, no ports on the back of the laptops -only on the side - so they're easy to get at, inbuilt charge tester on the battery, rounded corners on laptops so you can't catch clothing, backlit keyboard which dims depending on the brightness of the environment, magnetic latches with no breakable parts, slot loading dvd drives without breakable caddies, ports ordered by how frequently they're used so you don't end up with a mess of cables on one side, the built in camera has a light which always comes on to warn you when the camera is operational, you can run laptops without batteries in them (still non standard in the industry), automatic screen dimming depending on ambient conditions and every computer they make still looks f**king awesome.The iPod has one single scroll wheel and a hold switch and every other manufacturer is still struggling to beat the power this simplicity brings to MP3 players. *And* it looks great.So again, when has functionality ever been sacrificed for looks?
gauthiermApr 11, 2007
If you check your blood sugar at least once a day you're unlikely to go into a diabetic coma.
bitbytebitApr 11, 2007
@kinkholy crap I had to respondEither you havn't been a diabetic very long or you are extremely clueless and do not see your doctor often enough (and listen to him)The pump allows a MUCH greater control of your sugar levels, well actually the wizard that figures out the dosage does, but its still a lot better than the pen - the pen is great, better than a syringe, but the pump is better still.Your clueless comment serves nothing (if you were trying to be funny you failed)
orlyfactorApr 11, 2007
i wonder if she gets to hang out with Wilfred Brimley...?
takamalakApr 25, 2007
Shut the f**k up you piece of s**t. You've never been in a situation where someone's life depended on a complete stranger administering a bolus to someone with a 800+ blood sugar level and not knowing how to do it on an archaic interface. SO SHUT YOUR f**kING NECK HOLE, YOU f**kING c**k SLOB.
macksdaddy65Aug 17, 2007
Please have your sister complete the survey at <a class="user" href="http://pumpprotector.com">http://pumpprotector.com</a>This might end up helping the pump to look like something else if we take that into the design objectives.
macksdaddy65Aug 17, 2007
what if your pump had a wireless connection via GPRS for automatic uploads and remote diagnostics for troubleshooting? That's what we do at Diabetech.net
macksdaddy65Aug 17, 2007
Apple didn't design the iPod so why do people think they can design a better medical device? Just curious as to the logic of at least 50% of the commenters on this topic recently that somehow the medical device industry is stupid. Several of you in this thread did a good job of pointing out the first do no harm objective.
macksdaddy65Aug 17, 2007
Sounds like you may not have heard of Diabetech's GlucoMON wireless glucose meter and our GlucoDYNAMIX automated care system? We take WWAN technology to bear on glucose meters and other medical devices plus analytics and automated feedback. Check it out and let us know if this is what you're talking about. <a class="user" href="http://diabetech.net/glucomon.html">http://diabetech.net/glucomon.html</a>
tanwishawMar 15, 2011
good e-book reads by ASM press , apple friendly http://bit.ly/hNEhAk