Location Services Double Fail

A couple weeks ago, the clutch on my car died, and I was stranded on the road. Fortunately, I have free roadside assistance as part of my car insurance policy and called the toll-free number to schedule a tow. There was an option to speak to an agent and another option to pinpoint my location if I had a mobile phone. I opted for the latter, hoping to use modern technology to expedite my request. I was sent a text message with a link to begin my request:

So far so good. Upon clicking the link, I was taken to page on my web browser where it asked me to enter my vehicle location:

It stated that location services were required in order to use the map. Although I confirmed that I had enabled Location Services on my iPhone in Settings > Privacy > Location Services, I hadn't additionally enabled location services for my web browser (Safari). Not having realized that at the time, I decided to try entering my location in the search bar instead. I was at the corner of Sepulveda Blvd and National Blvd, so tried entering that intersection to no avail. It required an actual street address, not an intersection.

Feeling like this was taking too long, I abandoned the high-tech option and tapped a phone icon on the webpage which connected me to a live agent at All City Tow Service. I verified my insurance plan and told her my location (intersection of Sepulveda Blvd and National Blvd), and she said a tow truck should arrive in 45 minutes. Hooray for humans—a triumph over technology! Humans 1, Technology 0. I also received a text message confirmation from All City Tow Service.

I noticed the discrepancy between what the All City Tow Service agent told me (45 minutes) vs. the text message confirmation (90 minutes). Otherwise, all the other information looked correct. As I waited for the tow truck, I made work-related phone calls. About 90 minutes later, the tow truck still had not arrived. I clicked on the text message link to the website again, and given that my location was manually entered by the live agent, I was taken directly to a map:

I noticed immediately that the pin was placed on the wrong intersection (again, my car was at the corner of Sepulveda Blvd and National Blvd, but the pin was on the other side of the freeway). Fearing that the tow truck driver would not find me, I called All City Tow Service to have them update my location. It turns out that the tow truck driver went to the pinned location, did not see me, and left. So they dispatched a 2nd tow truck driver, and I provided a physical street address on Sepulveda Blvd that they could correctly enter for my location. I was given a wait time of 30 minutes. That was a little frustrating, but 30 minutes didn't seem that bad. Plus, a parking enforcement officer had come moments earlier and set up cones in the road to help divert traffic around my car which was blocking the middle lane of a 3-lane street, so I was not concerned about traffic safety.

About 45 minutes later, there was no tow truck in sight. I called All City Tow Service again to confirm that they had the correct address, and they confirmed the street address. However, something seemed to have gone awry with the 2nd tow truck driver (they did not answer my question about what exactly happened), so they dispatched a 3rd driver, and I was given a wait time of 45 minutes.

It was lunchtime anyway, so I grabbed a burger and continued waiting curbside. Another independent tow truck driver pulled up and offered to tow my car for $60. I was slightly tempted to take the offer but declined. Fortunately, the 3rd tow truck arrived almost exactly 45 minutes later, and I had my car towed to the mechanic.

My total wait time was 3 hours. Humans 0, Technology 0.

GoPro HERO7 Black Microphone Port

Earlier this year, I wrote about my new toy, a GoPro HERO7 Black. I've really enjoyed using its video capabilities. Normally I shoot in 2.7K at 60fps which gives me plenty of flexibility in making 1080p videos with cropping, image stabilization, or both.

Although I do have the case and various mounts, most commonly I shoot handheld videos without the casing. In doing so, I have discovered that sometimes I inadvertently cover up the microphone port with my fingers which muffles the sound. Given that the GoPro HERO7 Black is waterproof, I had always assumed incorrectly that the microphone was using the same port as the speakers on the bottom of the camera.

The owner's manual does not show the location of the microphone port, so I searched Google. All of the search results led me to external microphone products or general reviews of the camera. After doing some of my own testing, I discovered that there is a separate microphone port on the side of the camera—it's the tiny hole above the power button, as shown in the upper left portion of this image:

So for those of you who shoot handheld videos with the GoPro HERO7 Black and were wondering the same thing, I hope this helps you too.

Airline Elite Status + Basic Economy Fare = ?

I have Platinum status (50,000 miles + $6,000 in one calendar year) on American Airlines. Benefits include complimentary auto-requested first class upgrades on short flights, early upgrade confirmations, mileage bonuses, priority checkin, 2 free checked bags, ability to select seats with extra legroom at no extra cost, and a variety of other perks.

In the last several years, many airlines have introduced low-cost airplane tickets that have certain restrictions. American Airlines has a Basic Economy Fare that has the following rules:

Have you ever wondered what would happen if an American Airlines customer with elite status (i.e., Gold, Platinum, Platinum Pro, or Executive Platinum) were to buy a Basic Economy Fare? Which rules would prevail? Specifically, the benefit that I care about the most is the ability to select a seat with extra legroom, and that comes with all levels of elite status.

As I was booking my American Airlines flight on Expedia, it defaulted to the Basic Economy Fare for $331 and asked for an additional $160 to get around the restrictions above. Since there was an Expedia policy to allow for free cancellations within 24 hours of booking, I selected the Basic Economy Fare, completed my transaction, and then went to the American Airlines website to see if I could leverage my Platinum status to select a seat. What do you think happened? Drumroll please...

The Basic Economy Fare restrictions trump the Platinum status benefits. Boo! Hiss! I have never achieved Platinum Pro or Executive Platinum, but I assume that the Basic Economy Fare restrictions prevail over any kind of elite status. I also assume that other airlines would have the same policies, but I have not personally verified. In any case, thank goodness for Expedia's 24-hour free cancellation policy. Turns out that I found a better flight on Southwest for less money. Hooray, Digital Daddy for the win!

ECG on Apple Watch Series 4

You may be aware that there is a new ECG app on the Apple Watch Series 4. An Apple Support page provides instructions on how to use the app and interpret the results. Since I'm a doctor and a geek, I'll try to provide a little more context about the Apple Watch ECG capabilities in layman's terms.

The Apple Watch ECG tracing (a portion of mine is pictured above) is a subset of what is formally known as a "12-lead ECG" that might be used in doctor's offices and hospitals. A full 12-lead ECG might look something like this:

It's called a 12-lead ECG because there are 12 combinations of the leads that are placed on a patient's body, with each lead representing the electrical signals between 2 points on the body. Those 12 leads are I, II, III, aVR, aVL, aVF, V1, V2, V3, V4, V5, and V6. The placement of those 12 leads on a patient's body and the understanding of the differences between those leads are beyond the scope of this blog, but suffice it to say that in certain scenarios, it is important to look at ECG tracings from multiple leads to tell what is going on.

A 12-lead ECG can reveal many different kinds of findings, such as:

• Arrhythmias: atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter, ventricular tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation, Wolf-Parkinson-White syndrome, sick sinus syndrome (tachy-brady syndrome), atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia, multifocal atrial tachycardia, wandering atrial pacemaker, 1st/2nd/3rd-degree atrioventricular block, premature atrial contractions, premature ventricular contractions, long QT syndrome, asystole, and many others
• Ischemia (insufficient supply of oxygen to heart muscles): unstable angina and acute myocardial infarction (heart attack)
• Structural abnormalities: cardiac aneurysms, dextrocardia, congenital heart defects, hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, atrial septal defects, and others
• Miscellaneous: hyperkalemia, hypokalemia, hypercalcemia, hypocalcemia, digoxin effect, pericarditis, and many others

The Apple Watch Series 4 (and presumably beyond) can identify normal sinus rhythm (i.e., a normal rhythm that is found in healthy hearts) and atrial fibrillation (an abnormal heart rhythm in which there is no predictable periodicity to the heartbeats and the notable absence of a certain kind of electrical signal known as a P wave on the ECG), but it cannot currently identify any other problems such as the partial list above.

After demonstrating success with the detection of atrial fibrillation, I think it would be fairly straightforward for Apple to identify several other kinds of arrhythmias (from the partial list above) on a Series 4 Apple Watch simply by updating the software, and I predict that we will see this capability sometime soon. However, it makes a lot of sense to start with identifying atrial fibrillation because it is one of the most common cardiac arrhythmias, has potentially serious consequences if left undetected and untreated, and is fairly straightforward to computerize its detection on ECG.

That being said, there are some conditions such as detecting heart attacks that are unlikely to be performed on an Apple Watch because a heart attack results in ECG changes in some leads but not others, depending on its location. That is why we use all 12 leads to look for signs of ischemia in all regions of the heart. The Apple watch ECG tracing is more or less equivalent to lead I on a 12-lead ECG. It is essentially a 1-lead ECG or a "telemetry strip" reading.

I hope this sheds some light on the Apple Watch ECG app's current capabilities and limitations. Tim Cook recently stated, "if you zoom out into the future, and you look back, and you ask the question, 'What was Apple's greatest contribution to mankind,' it will be about health." With Apple's introduction of HealthKit (June 2014), the Health app (June 2014), ResearchKit (March 2015), CareKit (March 2016), and now the ECG app (December 2018), I think Apple is in an excellent position to do just that.

Updates on macOS Mojave App Store

I have a MacBook Pro and iMac, both running macOS Mojave 10.14.3. Several days ago my MacBook Pro told me that I had an update waiting to be installed.

I dutifully updated my NordVPN application, and because I have the same application running on my iMac, I turned on the iMac, launched the App Store, and planned to update the app there too. However, the NordVPN update was nowhere to be found.



I could not find an option to check for updates or to refresh the App Store, so I waited several minutes to no avail.  I tried quitting and re-launching the App Store, but still no success. It wasn't until the next day that the App Store on my iMac gave me the option to update my NordVPN application.

So this made me wonder if there is some sort of queueing protocol where not all users are given the option to update applications at the same time, perhaps to avoid server bandwidth issues? Anyone else see similar behavior on 2 separate Macs?

I'm All In

I've purchased a variety of Apple products over the years: Apple //e, Mac Classic II, 17-inch G4 iMac, 24-inch Mid-2007 iMac, and 27-inch Late-2012 iMac. Our family also owns two iPads, two iPhones, and an Apple TV. I've also used MacBook Pros for work and was recently gifted a set of AirPods. A couple of years ago, I bought an Apple Watch for my wife but had not used one myself until a couple weeks ago when we won an Apple Watch Series 4 in a raffle—woo hoo, come to Digital Daddy!

Clearly I am fully invested in the Apple ecosystem. In any case, I'll be blogging in the near future about some observations related to the Apple Watch so stay tuned!

Excuses Excuses

As described in my previous post, I recently bought a GoPro HERO7 Black. It records video at 4K (3840 x 2160). It's technically not my first device that is capable of capturing 4K video. My GoPro HERO3+ Black records video at 4K 15fps, but I found the 15fps frame rate to be unacceptable in most situations, so I mostly used 2.7K 30 fps and 1080p 60fps. However, my GoPro HERO7 Black records video at 4K 60fps (woo hoo) which means that I'll be recording a lot more 4K video.

Much to my dismay, Final Cut Pro X told me that my Late 2012 27-inch iMac (2.9 GHz Intel Core i5 processor) isn't quite powerful enough to edit 4K video (or larger). I proceeded to edit a 4K project anyway, and sure enough the skimming and previewing of 4K video is quite choppy and results in a significantly degraded editing experience. However, upon export, the 4K video plays smoothly in VLC Media Player, QuickTime Player, and of course YouTube.

The bottom line is that now I have an excuse to buy a new 27-inch Retina 5K iMac. 🤓