Dry January? More like high January.

The Atlantic (News+ link):

Many Americans enthusiastically partake in Dry January, but it is rarely pitched as fun. After the holiday stretch of office parties and family gatherings, Americans have come to use the start of every year to abstain from alcohol in the name of health and auspicious beginnings. It’s a time of discipline, of cleansing, of embodying your mood board, even if it makes you a drag at parties. And it is also, as weed companies have learned, a marketing opportunity.

In recent years, weed companies have started to lean into the argument that taking the edge off sobriety with a low-dose gummy or THC drink still counts as dry. My social-media feeds are flooded with posts from cannabis companies pitching their products as fun and approachable tools to get through an alcohol-free month. Mary and Jane, an edibles company, makes a tantalizing proposition: “Dry January made easy.” Artet, which specializes in beverages, sells a “High & Dry January” bundle that includes a bottle of its THC-laced aperitif. Some products are conspicuously health-coded: North Canna describes its cannabis drinks as “functional,” and Feals highlights its edibles’ low calorie count. Above all, the ads emphasize how little booze you drink when you get high instead.

This push for a weed-filled January is, of course, a blatant (and somewhat silly) attempt by cannabis companies to get more customers. But as restrictions on marijuana loosen, and more Americans find themselves able and willing to fit the drug into their lives, Dry January does appear to be offering an opportunity for experimentation. In fact, cannabis sales surged in January 2024, and 21 percent of Dry January participants who responded to a 2023 survey swapped booze for weed that month.

This type of liberalistic, “have what you want as long as it doesn’t affect anyone else,” mindset is what will eventually destroy civilizations, including ours. You can’t walk out of anywhere these days except you smell weed. Even right outside the hospital for God’s sake.

So much for starting the new year with optimism and healthier choices:

The shaky logic of replacing one drug with another during a month dedicated to sobriety is hard to ignore. If the point of Dry January is to improve health, replacing alcohol with cannabis—which is not a benign substance—seems counterproductive. Far less is known about the long-term use of cannabis compared with alcohol, but both can be abused, cause dependence, and interfere with daily function and productivity, Ryan Vandrey, who helps run Johns Hopkins’s Cannabis Science Laboratory, told me. Some people are predisposed to react negatively to cannabis, experiencing anxiety, paranoia, or even cyclical vomiting. Over time, long-term heavy cannabis use can exacerbate mental-health conditions such as schizophrenia and depression.

The cycle will continue, as increased schizophrenia and depression means prescribing more antidepressants and antipsychotics that people once again shouldn’t need, but it fuels the money circle fresh with even more cash. One of the reasons why I left traditional pharmacy is because you become a bonafide, legal drug dealer, depending on what city you work in.

That was over a decade ago, so I can’t even imagine how insane it must be today.

Just think - almost every area of healthcare that has increased treatment leads to better outcomes, except mental health.

One of the reasons why it’s true is because people aren’t living with purpose anymore. Many people don’t even think about the question:

“Why am I here?”

They’re always connected to a device, listening to something 24/7, are on some sort of drug cocktail, binge watching a new series, and so on.

They’ve never unplugged and detoxed their mind to really think about, “Why am I here?”

Every girl’s dilemma.

Huffington Post describes one young girls dilemma with AI generated nude content:

One 15-year-old girl revealed a stranger had made fake nude images of her and she was worried about them being sent to her parents.

“It looks so real, it’s my face and my room in the background. They must have taken the pictures from my Instagram and edited them,” she told the charity.

“I’m so scared they will send them to my parents, the pictures are really convincing, and I don’t think they’d believe me that they’re fake.”

Just one of many thousands of horror stories.

Five “Fahadx” observations I made when at the hospital.

Baby girl got sick again this past week, making a total of 8 days at the hospital over a one month period. A few observations I noticed:

1. Almost every healthcare worker wears an Apple Watch.

2. This particular Modular Compact configuration with no bottom widget is more common than I would like.

3. The chapel is occupied by Muslims 99% of the time.

4. Sushi is great, and cheap. You can literally park at the hospital and get cheaper sushi at the cafeteria than the grocery store.

5. Masimo blood oxygen sensors are a real thing. A wrap-around for the foot, using the big toe as the sensing point. Thank you Masimo - now please (Apple and Masimo), make a deal and give us proper Apple Watch blood oxygen capability.

OpenAI releases ChatGPT Health.

OpenAI:

Today, health information is often scattered across portals, apps, wearables, PDFs, and medical notes—so it's hard to see the full picture, and people are left to navigate a complex healthcare system on their own. People have shared countless stories of turning to ChatGPT to help make sense of it all. In fact, health is one of the most common ways people use ChatGPT today: based on our de-identified analysis of conversations, over 230 million people globally ask health and wellness related questions on ChatGPT every week.

ChatGPT Health builds on this so responses are informed by your health information and context. You can now securely connect medical records and wellness apps—like Apple Health, Function, and MyFitnessPal—so ChatGPT can help you understand recent test results, prepare for appointments with your doctor, get advice on how to approach your diet and workout routine, or understand the tradeoffs of different insurance options based on your healthcare patterns.

Health is designed to support, not replace, medical care. It is not intended for diagnosis or treatment. Instead, it helps you navigate everyday questions and understand patterns over time—not just moments of illness—so you can feel more informed and prepared for important medical conversations. To keep your health information protected and secure, Health operates as a separate space with enhanced privacy to protect sensitive data. Conversations in Health are not used to train our foundation models. If you start a health-related conversation in ChatGPT, we’ll suggest moving into Health for these additional protections.

Sounds promising, and makes me think their first hardware device will be a wearable of some sort that also gathers health data.

Grok’s ability to sexualize women - are we really surprised?

Sex sells.

Any publicity is good publicity.

Whether it’s right or wrong, it doesn’t matter to many people.

It’s funny because I go out of my way to blur women, but here we are now where all kinds of women, even hijabis are being exposed with AI.

From Reddit:

there has been an increase in people misusing AI tools to turn hijabi women pics into harmful images and spreading them online without consent.

you have a bunch of guys asking Grok things like "put her in a bikini", "turn her around", "make her touch her toes while turned around"

Muslim woman if you are reading this and share your images online, you might want to check out what's happening in X because images shared online are no longer in your possession and people can do with them as they like

This one video of this known hijabi went viral and it's fully extreme NSFW, published on Corn sites.

Please be cautious with public photos May Allah protect us all.😧

Unfortunate of course, but not surprising. I mentioned this over a year ago in my other blog when discussing about “undressing” websites:

This is another reason why women and girls in general, shouldn’t post their photos online. The fitna is already there even if the photos aren’t sexualized, but this is a whole other level of just destroying a girls reputation. 

Imagine if this became rampant in the Muslim community? It would just be a huge mess, with families’ reputations being tarnished and girls being slandered against left and right. Imagine a high school or middle school boy liking a muslim girl in school, and trying this feature on her. She may not even be one who posts photos online and might not even be involved in social media, but anyone can just take your photo these days and do whatever they want with it. 

What phone fasting can do for you.

Via Kottke.org (photo removed version of article here)

A group of students at a New Mexico college (mostly) gave up their phones & computers for a week. What did they learn? “Most students said they had gotten to know themselves better without their phones butting in all day long.”

There’s no doubt “phone fasting” has its benefits, even though it’s really impossible today with many services being digitized with no alternative, such as student laundry machines that run on an app.

I noticed the same thing when I used to do prison dawah. Inmates were not on drugs or alcohol, and the mental clarity is what allowed them to think and let their fitra lead them to the straight path.

It’s crazy that we spend so much of our time looking down at our devices, when Allah subhana wata'aalah constantly reminds us to look up at the sky to witness His signs:

Have they not then looked at the sky above them: how We built it and adorned it ˹with stars˺, leaving it flawless?

Surah Qaf (50:6)

Grok makes nearly nude photos of women without their permission - future implications.

The Guardian (pdf file of article):

Grok has come under fire from lawmakers and regulators worldwide after it emerged it had been used to virtually undress images of women and children, and show them in compromising sexualised positions. The widespread sexual abuse consists of X users asking Grok to manipulate pictures of fully clothed women to put them in bikinis, on their knees, and cover them in what looks like semen.

“I felt horrified, I felt violated, especially seeing my toddler’s backpack in the back of it,” St Clair said of an image in which she has been put into a bikini, turned around and bent over.

“It’s another tool of harassment. Consent is the whole issue. People are saying, well, it’s just a bikini, it’s not explicit. But it is a sexual offence to non-consensually undress a child.”

I wonder if this is the first time 1st generation Muslim parents in the West are aware of this issue? Unfortunately, this is nothing compared to some of the more vulgar apps and websites out there. The worst part? The more this type of behavior becomes normalized, the more likely it is for women (yes, even Muslim women) to say, “well if people are going to nudify me, I might as well get paid for it.”

The drug cascade that is becoming the norm in children.

From The Wall Street Journal (paywalled link; Apple News+link):

“The best scientific evidence suggests that it is very rare for two or more medications in kids to be helpful and there are concerns about safety, because there can be additive adverse effects of different types of medications,” said Dr. Javeed Sukhera, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and chair of psychiatry at the Institute of Living at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut.

A child on several medications at once often hasn’t had a comprehensive evaluation by a child psychiatrist, Sukhera said. Stimulants can cause side effects that can be mistaken for an additional disorder. “When a young person shows up with anxiety after starting a stimulant, that doesn’t mean that they have an anxiety disorder,” he said.

Many adults say that ADHD medications vastly improved their lives, and some scientific studies show that medicating reduces risk of other potential problems such as juvenile delinquency and subsequent mental-health disorders.

Still, side effects of the ADHD medications on young children can be severe and unpredictable, sometimes pushing parents to accept additional pills to address them.

All too often, under pressure from preschools and elementary schools, many parents seek help from pediatricians or psychiatric nurse practitioners—who frequently lack in-depth training in pediatric mental health—rather than wait months or even years for appointments with behavioral specialists or child psychiatrists.

Alexandra Perez, a clinical psychologist at Emory University School of Medicine who works with young children on Medicaid and private insurance, said she has seen children as young as 4 on multiple psychiatric medications. Many have experienced adversity or trauma and have behavioral problems as a result that get labeled as ADHD, said Perez, who practices Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), a method that has been proven to reduce behavioral difficulties associated with ADHD.

“Children are quickly diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed medication,” she said. “That doesn’t tackle the root causes. We are putting the Band-Aid of medication on, a temporary fix.”

So much more to unpack here, but the best form of therapy really is more time spent with parents who take an active role in being present with their children. This is especially true for mothers who have been tricked into thinking that parenting and being a stay-at-home mom isn’t worth anything, when Islamically and even from other religious perspectives, it is the most important and honorable act a woman can do - raising future generations of humanity.

Kids with screens lead to adults without resilience, which lead to kids with screens.

The Register:

A group of Singaporean researchers who studied a cohort of 168 children for more than a decade found that those exposed to screens in infancy (before two years of age) showed accelerated maturation of brain networks involved in visual processing and cognitive control. That faster specialization, the researchers suggest, was associated with slower decision-making in childhood, and in turn, higher anxiety symptoms in adolescence.

"During normal development, brain networks gradually become more specialised over time," according to the study's lead author Dr. Huang Pei. "However, in children with high screen exposure, the networks controlling vision and cognition specialised faster, before they had developed the efficient connections needed for complex thinking." […]

So, what is a new parent to do when confronted with a growing amount of screen time in adults, children, and infants, and multiple research results that suggest it's bad for the brain? Put down the smartphone and stow the iPad in favor of a good, old-fashioned book.

Children whose parents frequently read to them at age three showed a weakened link between screen time and altered brain development, meaning active engagement and enrichment brought by reading to children and asking them questions about the books shared with them helps foster better emotional management, language skills, and, in the case of the latest study, is likely to help their brains develop at a consistent, healthy rate across various cognitive areas.

Parents, read to your children. Physical books, not from a screen because it’s still a screen, and all it takes is one notification to distract from the experience. Physical books are a joy, and I’ll drown in them if I have to.

Erica Komisar in her book, Being There - Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters, shines more light on the subject, this time with mothers. Distracted stay-at-home mothers are no different than mothers who are out of the house and at work when it comes to caring for a child:

However, a stay-at-home mother who is bored by caring for her child; inattentive to her child’s needs; overwhelmed with caring for her child; distracted by her phone, tablet, or computer; or caught up in social or other family obligations—or the mother who is depressed and turns away from her child emotionally—is as absent to that child as a mother who spends long hours away from home.

The question for this generation and generations to come is, what is causing a mother to be bored with her child? What is causing her to be inattentive or overwhelmed? There is no doubt that a huge contributing factor is the constant dopamine that screens provide, making caring for a little one dull and boring. And the best way to keep them quiet? A screen.

The vicious cycle continues.

Another excerpt from her book:

It is rare for me to walk down the are not in fact street or go for a walk in the park and to see a mother or caregiver truly engaged emotionally present.with a baby. Instead, I see mothers and caregivers preoccupied with their cell phones. Technology has changed our lives forever, in some ways for the good and in some ways not. The desire to be stimulated every moment and to flee from the boring moments of being with our babies is only exacerbated by the seduction of our constantly lit-up cell phones. One might say (and I do) that we did better before the ubiquitous cell phone in terms of our focus on our children. As a culture we have become inured to the impact of these interruptions and distractions on our feelings, our psyches, and our sense of self. My husband and I recently went to a restaurant and had dinner near a couple who looked at their cell phones, not each other, for the entire dinner. Imagine what it is like for your child when you constantly pick up your phone, text, or check your emails to see if there is something or someone more important and more interesting than he is. It is your ability to find your child interesting that makes your child feel interesting and develops his self-esteem; of course, constantly checking your phone will make your child feel less interesting and less important to you.

The “magic” weight loss pill has arrived.

NBC News:

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved a pill version of Wegovy, Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster weight loss drug.

The Wegovy pill, as it’s called, is first oral version of a GLP-1 drug that has been brought to market for weight loss. A second pill, from Eli Lilly, is also expected to be approved in the coming months.

Novo Nordisk expects the Wegovy pill to be available widely in January, a company spokesperson said. […]

“This is a meaningful step forward in the field,” said Dr. Christopher McGowan, a gastroenterologist who runs a weight loss clinic in Cary, North Carolina. “It won’t replace injectables, but it broadens our tool kit in an important way.”

Customers would ask about “a pill for weight loss” years ago - a magic pill for weight loss. Now the dream is halfway there. The pill exists, but nothing magical about the side effects:

As with GLP-1 injections, the most common reported side effects in the trial were gastrointestinal, including nausea and vomiting. In some cases, the side effects from the pill version may feel “more intense,” McGowan said, because the medication hits the stomach all at once and can trigger nausea.

“The challenges we see with injectable GLP-1s don’t magically disappear with a tablet,” he said.

As always, you can’t beat the traditional recommendation of two critical lifestyle changes: changing your diet for the better, and more exercise.

Life update.

My apologies to my consistent readers out there, as I have been inconsistent at certain times, one of them being right now. Life throws curveballs at you when you least expect it, and when we had our daughter back in January, it was a curveball we didn’t expect.

Our daughter was born with many health issues, including a cleft lip, a cleft in her epiglottis causing aspiration issues, visual impairment, and brain tissue anomalies along with a weakened pituitary gland, meaning she doesn’t produce enough growth hormone. You would think with all these conditions she would be like a vegetable, but thankfully with God’s grace she is still very active and a cute little button that brings joy into our lives. She’s doing much better.

We’ve been in and out of the hospital several times over the course of the past year, with countless doctor visits and home nurse visits. It takes a toll on a person to deal with these issues, and it also brings perspective into one’s life and a sense of higher purpose. Thankfully my daughter is doing well, and things are looking optimistic.

That being said, I will continue to talk about Apple, cars, and technology, but also throwing in other topics that I hope benefits others that have a serious focus on faith and family life.

I understand this might not be your cup of tea, but it’s something that really means a lot to me, and part of me fulfilling a higher purpose. If anything, you can be more assured that the advice I provide will be genuine since at the end of the day, I will have to answer to God and I have to make sure I was not deceiving anyone regardless of their faith.

Stay tuned for even more value continuing onwards, beyond just tech insights.

Big Pharma joins Big Tech in the trillion dollar club.

Reuters:

Eli Lilly (LLY.N), opens new tab hit $1 trillion in market value on Friday, making it the first drugmaker to enter the exclusive club dominated by tech giants and underscoring its rise as a weight-loss powerhouse.

A more than 35% rally in the company's stock this year has largely been driven by the explosive growth of the weight-loss drug market.

In the last two years as new, highly effective obesity treatments hit the market, the category has emerged as one of the most lucrative segments in healthcare.

Sales of Lilly's tirzepatide, marketed as Mounjaro for type 2 diabetes and Zepbound for obesity, have also topped Merck's (MRK.N), opens new tab Keytruda as the world's best-selling drug.

I remember women jokingly asking me, when I worked as a retail pharmacist, if there is a magic pill for weight loss? There wasn’t anything available at the time, but now there is. Still not without serious risks, but the market has spoken.

The perfect midlife crisis watch face for Apple Watch Ultra.

You’re backpacking in the Alps, trying to get some fresh air and a fresh perspective on life. In your mind, you’re trying to prove your self-worth and let yourself know that you still, “got it.”

“I’m not getting old,” you say to yourself.

I’m still young, strong, and have the stamina to keep up with life’s challenges.

You delude yourself and start thinking, “I’m not getting old, I’m getting optimized.”

You’ve built up some wealth, are able to stay in shape, started a family, got a good calcium score, all with God’s blessings, and are wondering:

What is the next path in my life?

But before you get too existential, you realize that you’re way too deep into the cavernous mountains, and need some assistance getting back to base. Fortunately, you have the latest and greatest Apple Watch Ultra, and you’re using your favorite watch face:

Waypoint.

It’s the perfect watch face because it provides a nice big digital clock for your bifocal-ready eyes, surrounded by a compass pointing to your waypoints and other places of interest for your shrinking brain. The watch face and compass are also flanked by 3 corner complications that you struggle a bit to focus on, but there’s a plus-sized complication that comes to the rescue.

No bifocals required.

This (officially named as “circular”) complication, combined with other convenient and larger features of the watch face, makes Waypoint the perfect transition to Senior Citizenship. It’s got a conflicting vibe, just like the mid-life crisis, where you have regular and large complications, and an adventurous vibe all mashed into one. This wasn’t Apple’s intent because the bigger complication by default is a smaller compass, making it worse for people with poor vision, but if you change the complication to anything else, it an accessibility feature.

From small compass, to accessibility text bubble.

1x, 2x, and 4x, sized text bubbles (from my crude measurements).

Much easier to read your unread message count with the larger circular complication, whether it’s Waypoint or X-Large.

Whether it is battery life, health, communication, or prayer, you can use the larger complication to focus (pun intended) on what matters most to you.

Hopefully more developers start taking advantage of this new complication.

Doing my hearing test on AirPods Pro 3.

While I was testing the AirPods Pro 3, I figured it was the right time to do a hearing test, now that the Noise Cancellation is twice as good as AirPods Pro 2. I’m happy with the results, especially since I disabled headphone safety notifications. I would say the 6 dBHL for my left ear was due to the air conditioner being on, which I couldn’t tell since the AirPods go into Noise Cancellation mode during the test. I only noticed it after the left ear was done, it was totally silent, and then I heard the AC cycle off. Then the right ear test started. I didn’t feel like doing another one, but I’m sure the results would have been a lot closer to the 1 dBHL.

Still, I don’t have the robust ears of someone in their 20s. I’m reminded of this fact every time my younger brother (17 years younger!) tells me to unplug my charger since he can hear the coil whine.

For more official numbers, check out ASHA’s website.

The Fitness app on iPad is a shell of what it could really be.

The iPad’s Fitness app is equal to the Fitness+ tab on the iPhone’s Fitness app. You don’t have tabs for Summary, Workout, or Sharing. This wasn’t a big deal until Apple added the ability to start workouts directly from the iPhone in iOS 26, whether you wear AirPods Pro 3 or Apple Watch. Now that AirPods Pro 3 can track your heart rate and works with countless workout types, it only makes sense for the Fitness app to be the same across all platforms and let you use an iPad to start a workout with metrics tracked on AirPods Pro 3. This would be perfect for people who like to watch videos on their iPad while running, allowing them to see their metrics in a dual-window setup, unlike this unoptimized dual-device setup.

Is Apple gatekeeping the iPad as a Fitness+ only device and limiting its functionality on purpose? Personally, I don’t think so. I’m expecting the app to be updated to be equal to the iPhone app and be more cohesive.

AirPods Pro 3 heart rate sensing capabilities - exceeds expectations.

A thorough test by DC Rainmaker showing how accurate the heart rate sensors are in AirPods Pro 3, after the dismal performance with the Powerbeats Pro 2:

In any case, I’m blown away. Like, legit blown away. Not because Apple couldn’t do it, but because the PowerBeats 2 Pro were so bad (and only about 8 months ago), that I’d kinda written off Apple’s ability to get optical HR correct. Further, other companies recent attempts (e.g. Polar’s with Sennheiser), have also been pretty darn bad. All of which tracked with numerous other companies over the years trying, and failing, horrifically.

Apple has managed to do something that really nobody else has: Produce a pretty solid heart rate sensing device in your ears. It’s not absolutely perfect, but it’s really strong. Plus, despite urban legends to the contrary, chest straps are rarely perfect either (especially in the cooler fall temps, when there isn’t quite as much sweat, you’ll see issues in the first 5-10 mins).

Just like classic Apple hardware, it just works. I was skeptical myself since Apple’s keynote video shows a guy starting a walking workout, but I did some indoor runs and it worked fine. Indoor runs are pretty basic and don’t involve a lot of head movement, so I tested the AirPods during some HIIT workouts with a lot more head movement, and still they tracked my heart rate without a hitch. I don’t have other devices to really compare the nitty gritty numbers, but they stayed put and the numbers were in line with my Apple Watch metrics.

From a fitness perspective, these are a great device for those who love to live in Apple’s walled garden.

This is why Apple will not make an Apple Ring.

Daniel from ZONEofTECH just went through a harrowing experience with Samsung’s Galaxy Ring. The battery swelled up, leading to the ring being stuck on his finger. He missed a flight, and had to go to the emergency room just to get it removed.

This could have ended really badly with a finger amputation (or worse), but thankfully he’s OK. Looks like it’s not the smartest thing to wrap a curved battery around your finger. Unfortunately, this isn’t Samsung’s first rodeo either with bad batteries. At least with a watch or earbuds, you can easily flick them off before any serious damage is done.

People want Apple to make a smart ring, but with AirPods Pro 3 and Apple Watches, Apple has 99% of the health market covered when it comes to health tracker placement. I do fall into the 1% who would like a more hidden placement, but definitely not a ring.

You can use a single AirPod Pro 3 earbud for heart rate and fitness monitoring.

I started a workout in the Fitness app with both an Apple Watch and AirPods Pro 3 in place. The app tells you that it is “starting on Apple Watch,” but when the workout is active, you get a nice little graphic in the bottom right that shows you what Bluetooth devices are being used. I was wearing both the watch and AirPods, and immediately the little health icon picked up both devices for tracking my heart rate. I then tried disconnecting one device at a time, and the icon immediately updated to let me know what device is being used to track heart rate, calories burned, etc.

I followed a sequence of events that confirms one AirPod is enough to get a heart rate reading:

1. Both AirPods and Apple Watch are on. I removed one earbud, and metrics were still being read by both devices, signified by the little “2” icon.

2. I removed both earbuds, and the icon switched to the Apple Watch.

3. I placed one AirPod in my ear, and it switched back to two devices.

4. I removed my Apple Watch, and the sole AirPod was being used to track my workout.

AirPods Pro 3 is a huge win for those who can’t wear an Apple Watch for whatever reason (health reasons, work reasons, tattoos, etc). You can track multiple workout types, and 99% of people will find a workout that is compatible with AirPods Pro 3.

And all you need is a single earbud if that’s your style.

Apple releases Hypertension (high blood pressure) Notifications Validation Paper.

I was waiting for this paper.

I didn’t see it on Apple’s Health website before and didn’t get search results for it when searching online, but it’s there now. The google search dates the validation paper with an August 12, 2025 date.

Apple’s main endpoints for this study:

The validation study assessed the following coprimary safety and effectiveness endpoints:

• Notification sensitivity for participants with a Stage 1 or Stage 2 reference hypertension (HTN) category

• Notification specificity for participants with a Normal or Elevated reference HTN category

In more simple terms, for Stage 1 and Stage 2 hypertension, Apple was focusing on making sure a notification was given when a person actually has hypertension (true positive). For people with Normal or Elevated readings that don’t classify as hypertension, Apple was focused on making sure these people did not get a notification of hypertension (true negative).

Apple’s conclusions - If you have Stage 1 or Stage 2 hypertension, you are 41.2% likely to get a notification with a correct diagnosis (true positive). That number is close to 54% if you have Stage 2 hypertension. Generally speaking, the worse your hypertension, the more likely you’ll be notified.

On the flip side, if you have Normal or Elevated blood pressure that’s not classified as hypertension, you are 92.3% likely not to get notified (true negative). That number jumps to 95.3% if you just factor in Normal blood pressure. The more normal your blood pressure, the less likely you’ll be falsely notified.

The basic takeaway: if your Apple Watch tells you your blood pressure might be high, it probably is high and you should follow up with your doctor. If you don’t get any notifications, that doesn’t mean you don’t have high blood pressure because about half the time, Apple Watch doesn’t have enough data to confidently say you do have high blood pressure.

I’m hoping in the future, now that AirPods Pro 3 also have heart rate sensors, we can get more accurate data and higher sensitivity from more measurement sites that makes these tools even more useful as health-aids.

Right now the Apple Watch is nowhere near the greatest tool for detecting high blood pressure, but it sure as hell is a nice backup to have, right on your wrist.

More details in the paper.

Powerbeats Pro 2 can also integrate with the Fitness app and help you close your rings like AirPods Pro 3.

When Powerbeats Pro 2 were released back in February, you had to use a third party fitness app on iPhone in order to log your heart rate, calories, etc. Now with iOS 26, you can use Apple’s own Fitness app and track your heart rate with a workout.

The fine print in AirPods Pro 3 press release:

Heart rate sensing with AirPods Pro 3 and Powerbeats Pro 2 during workouts is available in the Fitness app on iPhone with iOS 26, iPad with iPadOS 26, and Apple TV with tvOS 26 when also paired with iPhone or Apple Watch. Apple Fitness+ requires a subscription.

The Powerbeats Pro 2 got a lot of flack from the fitness community due to its woes with accurate heart rate monitoring and lack of consistency in getting readings. It worked better on Android for God’s sake.

AirPods Pro 3 are a signature Apple product, and it needs to work well all the time in order for people to take its heart rate sensing capabilities seriously.