Apple Hires Toronto Doctor ‘to Help Chart the Future of Family Medicine’ With Apps

Apple has hired Toronto healthcare doctor Mike Evans “to help chart the future of family medicine” at the company, although the specifics of his role have not been disclosed (via CBC).

Evans was said to catch Apple’s attention through a series of videos he’s posted on his YouTube channel, called DocMikeEvans, where he narrates discussions about health and mindfulness topics over cartoon characters.

Evans previously held a position as a staff physician at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, and is said to already have started his “digital health care work” at Apple. For the time being, he plans to communicate between his home of Toronto and Cupertino, while his son finishes high school. Apple had already approached Evans about a position at the company, which he turned down the first time, but said he eventually was won over by the company’s messaging.

“I think why they are engaging me is the messaging,” Evans told Matt Galloway on CBC’s Metro Morning on Monday. “We’re searching for consistency, not perfection.”

“It’s exciting. It’s a bit nauseating and anxiety-provoking. We love Toronto but it’s a chance to live another chapter of our lives somewhere else. I’m super-excited.”

Evans’ hiring also aligns with Apple’s recent push into healthcare initiatives, especially with the doctor’s beliefs on how technology can help with the treatment of sick individuals. Eventually, he sees a future where apps are “prescribed” to help guide patients through their prescription routine, diagnosis, and even diet, so as to balance out how little doctors see each patient throughout the year.

“What happens now is I see you. Let’s say you have high blood pressure. I prescribe you a pill for that. I see you two or three times a year,” he said.

“In future, I’ll prescribe you an app. One of our whiteboards will drop in and explain what high blood pressure is. The phone will be bluetoothed to the cap of your pills. I’ll nudge you towards a low salt diet. All of these things will all happen in your phone. I see you two or three days a year. The phone sees you everyday.”

It’s easy to see how his ideas could potentially fit into Apple’s HealthKit platform, bolstered by apps on both the iPhone and even Apple Watch. Apple is continually trying to push itself to help customers live healthier lives, which it’s begun to do through company acquisitions, new advertisements, and the announcement of the fitness-focused Apple Watch Series 2. Earlier in the year, CEO Tim Cook discussed Apple’s push into the “next frontiers,” including health initiatives, on Mad Money.

Tag: health and fitness
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Apple’s All-New Birmingham Store Opens September 24, Bullring Location to Close

Apple has announced its all-new store in Birmingham, England, located at 128 New Street, opens on Saturday, September 24 at 9:00 a.m. local time. Apple’s nearby Bullring Shopping Centre store will permanently close on Friday, just one week after customers lined up for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.

Apple Birmingham under renovations via MacRumors reader Barry Rimmer
Apple has taken over a six-story building recently vacated by British bookstore Waterstones, and originally built in 1879 for Midland Bank.

Major planning documents for the inside of the 20,000-square-foot former banking hall were submitted to the Birmingham City Council last year, and renovations have been in progress for the past several months. Apple’s logo and the grand opening date were added to a construction barrier outside of the building last week.

Apple Store at nearby Bullring Shopping Centre
Apple Bullring opened in April 2005, and like many of its earlier locations, it is now too small and narrow to accommodate for increased foot traffic. Apple is in the process of relocating several of its retail stores to larger spaces, based on the company’s next-generation retail design language inspired by Jony Ive.

Related Roundup: Apple Stores
Tag: United Kingdom
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Morning brief: What does your Pixelated heart Desire?

The world was on fire and no one could save me but you. It’s strange what desire will make foolish people do.

Welcome to a terrific Tuesday! Google has confirmed that it will announce new phones on October 4. Based on the latest leaks of the purported Pixel and Pixel XL, it looks like we’ll be treated to great designs (once again) from HTC.

Speaking of HTC, the company has launched the Desire 10 Lifestyle and Desire 10 Pro. The mid-tier phones are still made out of plastic, but now come with a more upmarket design. With HTC unable to make a dent in the high-end segment, the brand is relying on the Desire series to turn things around, especially in emerging markets.

Samsung is all set to roll out replacement units of the Note 7 to Australian customers starting tomorrow. The South Korean company is also testing Nougat on the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, although we don’t know when it’ll be available on retail units. Here’s what’s making the rounds today.

Google Oct. 4 event is official as Pixel phones leaks out

Google late last night confirmed it’ll hold a phone-themed event in San Francisco on October 4, as widely rumored. We’re expecting to see Android 7.1 and a new Google system UI atop it, running on a pair of HTC-built, Google-branded phones.

And we’re already starting to see the rumored Pixel and Pixel XL leak out in places. Pics of both models in silver/white cropped up on Android Police last night, while a Nest commercial in the Netherlands also shows a brief glimpse of the Pixel in the same color combo.

UK bank TSB now supports Android Pay

TSB was the one remaining holdout among the major UK high street banks. To sweeten the deal, the bank is offering customers (with Classic Plus accounts or MasterCard credit cards) the chance to earn 5% cashback on the first £100 of contactless payments with Android Pay each month.

Note 7 replacement units arriving in Australia tomorrow

Samsung is kicking off its Note 7 replacement program in Australia from tomorrow, September 21. The manufacturer will also roll out a software update tomorrow to all Note 7 units in the country that will limit the battery’s charge to 60% (much like what it did in Korea). The new units will also receive a software update that will turn the battery icon green, indicating that the phone is safe to use.

HTC Desire 10 is official!

HTC’s latest mid-range phones are the Desire 10 Lifestyle and Desire 10 Pro. The handsets offer bold colors encased in a polycarbonate chassis, with gold accents running around the edges. The Desire 10 Lifestyle will retail for £249 in the UK, and the Pro variant will be in the £300-£400 mark. More

WhatsApp lets you tag people in group chats

You can now tag people in WhatsApp group chats. Just use the @ symbol followed by the contact’s name. The feature will definitely come in handy when trying to have a productive conversation, and it can also be used to annoy people.

Samsung testing Nougat on S7, S7 edge

PhoneArena came across a Geekbench test score of the S7 and S7 edge running Nougat. It should come as no surprise that Samsung is testing Nougat on this year’s flagships, but at this stage there’s no indication as to when we’ll see the update make its way to consumer devices.

Twitter shuts down engineering office in India

Twitter has shut down its engineering center in Bengaluru, India. The company has laid off its staff of 20, which joined Twitter following ZipDial’s acquisition last year. Twitter’s Gurgaon and Mumbai offices will continue to serve sales support, media partnerships, marketing, and business development roles.

How to restore your apps and settings to a new Android phone

Got a new phone? Awesome! Here’s how you can restore your apps and settings from your previous device.

Google has always synced calendar events, contacts, Drive documents, Gmail settings and other account-related information across devices, and since Android 5.0 Lollipop the company started offering the ability to restore apps to a new device. With Marshmallow, the feature was expanded to include app data as well as system settings, with all the information stored in the cloud.

If you’re using the Google Now Launcher, your home screen background, icon and widget layout as well as folder structure is now saved to the cloud, allowing you to restore your settings to a new handset and retain your home screen layout.

Where does all this data get stored? Google is backing up the app data to Drive, allocating 25MB for each app. Data used by the backup system doesn’t count toward your storage quota. Meanwhile, developers can choose to select what app data gets stored in the cloud.

Here’s how you can restore your apps and settings when moving to a new Android phone.

How to enable the Android backup service

First, make sure you have the backup service running on your current phone.

Open Settings from the home screen or app drawer.
Navigate to Backup & reset.

Select Back up my data.

Toggle Back up my data to On.
Select Back to go back to Backup & reset.
Check that the correct Google account is associated in Backup account.

Toggle Automatic restore to On to restore settings and data when installing an app.

Now that you’ve enabled the Android backup service, your system settings and app data will be automatically saved to Drive. When you’re switching to a new phone, you can rely on the service to restore your settings, apps, and associated data.

Note: The menu layout may not look exactly as above on your phone, but any phone running Lollipop and above should have an equivalent of Backup & reset.

How to restore apps and services on a new Android phone

Restoring apps is straightforward if you’re using a handset running Lollipop and above. This setting is available to phones as they’re booting up for the first time, or after they’ve been factory reset.

Select the arrow at the welcome screen to start setting up your handset.
Select the System language.

Log in to your home Wi-Fi network.

Select Accept and continue.
You can easily copy your Google accounts, apps, and data from another device, but for now, we’ll not use this option.

Log in to your Google account (you have two-factor authentication enabled, don’t you?).

Tap Accept to sign in to your Google account.
In the Google services page, you can select whether you want to enable the backup service for your account.
Choose your preferences, and select Next.

If you want to add another email account, you can do so in the Add another email section. Otherwise, just select Not now and hit Next.

We now come to the Which device? section, which lets you select the device you want to restore from.
You’ll see a list of all your previous devices, and when you’ve last used them.
Select a device to see all the apps available for restore.

If you want to restore all apps and settings, hit Restore.

Don’t want everything restored? Hit the arrow next to Restore all.
Selectively choose which apps you want to restore.

Hit Restore to retrieve apps and settings from the cloud.

You can now set up fingerprint security and enable Google Now.

That’s it! Once the initial setup is completed, apps and settings will be restored in the background.

How to see the amount of data synced to the cloud

Although you can’t see what data is being backed up to the cloud, you can take a look at the amount of app data that’s being stored. Here’s how you can find out:

Open Google Drive from the home screen or app drawer.
In My Drive, select the hamburger menu from the top left corner.

Navigate to Settings.

Tap Manage backup.
You’ll see a list of all the apps that are using the backup service.

The backup system works well for restoring apps and system settings, but app data remains an issue. When I did a clean Marshmallow install on the Moto G4 Plus and used the restore feature, apps like Fenix were already logged in, and my preferred settings for the Twitter client were intact from a previous phone. However, not all apps take advantage of the backup service, and with the feature limited to apps built on API level 23 (apps built for Marshmallow) and above, there are several older apps that aren’t eligible.

The ability to restore apps and settings is available on all current phones running Android 6.0 and above, although there are a few outliers. Recent Xiaomi phones, for instance, do not offer the restore service at all. I had to manually install apps individually on the Play Store, like it’s 2013. The issue is more common in countries like India, where there is an influx of Chinese phones with heavily tweaked user interfaces.

In Western markets, this should not be an issue. If you’re buying a phone from the likes of Samsung, LG, HTC, Sony, Motorola, or any other handset manufacturer that has a foothold in the U.S. market, you’ll be able to use the restore functionality to retrieve your apps and settings data with ease.

How has your experience been with Android’s restore feature? Let us know in the comments.

Amazing Google Pixel and Pixel XL hands-on photos leak, looking tasty

Google Pixel rumours and leaks are coming thick and fast at the moment. No sooner had we seen reported price details and official confirmation of the Google Pixel and Google Pixel XL launch event, we now have a great idea of what they look like in the flesh.

Previous real-world images of the handsets have been blurry to say the least and as much use as a chocolate teapot. But the latest photos to have emerged are as clear as day – save for intentional blurring to hide the identity of the leakster.

Sent by “Anonymous Alligator” to Android Police, the photos show the front and rear of the two devices.

If genuine, the front design matched much of what we’ve seen and heard before, including the outline image released by Google itself as part of the 4 October event teaser video.

• Google Pixel and Pixel XL: Release date, rumours and everything you need to know about the next Nexus
• Google Pixel and Pixel XL officially launched on 4 October
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Android Police

It is the image that shows the rear of each device that’s of more interest perhaps. It shows two iPhone-esque casings, but with a fingerprint sensor and two material design.

Part of the rear shell seems to be different to the rest, with Android Police suggesting that the back casing is made from metal and glass.

Back to the front and it seems that the Pixel XL will be a 5.5-inch device and the Pixel a 5-incher. Both have very thin bezels on the sides, much like previous leaks and renders have suggested.

Android Police also points out that the Pixel seems to be running an all-new boot animation.

We doubt this will be the last leak before the phones make their debut in a few weeks time. We’ll keep you posted on any further developments.

GoPro Karma preview: Bad-ass, but beautifully simple, drone

GoPro announced its entry into the drone market with Karma alongside its new flagship action camera the Hero 5, at its 2016 launch event. Karma has been the subject of rumours for months, but details have finally been revealed and it’s pretty damn cool.

We spent some time flying GoPro’s new drone and we have to say, we are pretty taken with it based on our first impressions. Here’s why.

GoPro Karma preview: Design

GoPro’s Karma has been designed with simplicity and portability at its core. It has a black and dark grey colour scheme with a small and subtle GoPro logo on the top of its main body next to the power button and as far as drones go, it’s well, good looking.

Four arms extend from the main body of Karma, each of which has a 10-inch propeller on top. These have been positioned to ensure they aren’t within the camera’s view. The front two arms have green lights underneath, while the rear two arms have red lights, enabling you to see which way is forward when it comes to controlling it – something that actually comes in very handy.

On the underside of the main body are four legs to keep the Karma steady along with a battery that slides out, charged via USB Type-C. The Karma logo is situated on the rear, while the front has a circular hole, allowing for the attachment of the camera and stabilisation mount. This is easily detachable with a twist and lock system, enabling you to then attach it to the grip for using on the ground. The Karma is compatible with Hero 4 and Hero 5 action cameras but neither are included.

Pocket-lint

The Karma drone measures 303 x 411 x 117mm when it is opened, but it folds up to 365.2 x 224.3 x 89.9mm in order to fit into the special backpack, which is where the portability comes in. The included backpack has the Karma drone itself, along with the clamshell remote, charging equipment, the stabilising mount and the grip, all of which fit perfectly into their designated spots.

GoPro claims the backpack has been designed to allow you to take Karma with you anywhere, on any activity, not noticing too much that you have it, and it has probably succeeded here. The backpack offers a nice design and although it’s not super light, it’s not heavy either. The Karma itself weighs a tiny bit over 1kg, while the remote is 625g so you’re probably looking at a little over 2kg altogether for everything you need to get Karma in the air.

GoPro Karma preview: Remote

The clamshell remote for Karma is one of our favourite things about the drone because it is so simple to use. Open the clam and you’ll see a built-in 5-inch touchscreen that enables you to see what the Karma can see.

The resolution is 720p and it has a peak brightness of 700nits. We tested the Karma in very sunny conditions at the top of a mountain and we had no issues seeing the display at all.

Under the screen there are two joysticks for controlling the Karma. The left is for altitude, of which the maximum is 4500-metres, while the right is for steering. Push the left joystick up and the Karma goes higher, push it down and it drops lower.

Pocket-lint

The same applies for steering, push the right joystick left and the drone moves left, push it up and the drone moves forward, push right and it moves right, while pushing down moves it backwards. You get the drift. It’s very simple and very easy to use, almost like playing an old skool racing game.

Just below in the centre of the joysticks is the power button. To get Karma to take off, you need to press and hold the power button for 3 seconds, and then tap take off on the screen so it won’t be taking off by accident. Landing is a piece of cake too, with one button needing a tap, situated below the power button.

On the outside of the clam are two final buttons. These are situated where your right index finger naturally sits when holding the remote. The first button, closest to the middle of the remote is to start or stop recording, while the second button is for switching modes.

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GoPro Karma preview: Features

The GoPro Karma has a few features up its sleeve, though it does miss off a couple, such as Follow Me. Automatic modes include Dronie, which results in zoom selfies and Cable cam, which makes Karma move from one pre-defined point to another.

It also has something called Reveal, which makes the Karma pan until the subject is in the shot, while Orbit will mean Karma continually circles around the subject. You can of course just control Karma freely too, which is what we did.

If the battery starts to run low, the Karma will give you three warnings. It will start returning to you on the second, unless you choose to override it, while the third sees Karma starting to descend and land. The Karma will know if the remote has moved however, so if you’re filming on a moving boat for example, it will know not to land where it took off as that’s likely to be water, which wouldn’t be ideal.

GoPro Karma preview: Performance

As we mentioned, we tested the GoPro Karma on the top of a mountain, which by all accounts was very windy. We aren’t talking mess-your-hair-up wind, we are talking tables-almost-blowing-over wind and the Karma and its maximum wind resistance of 22mph handled itself well.

Despite us being blown all over the place, the Karma appeared to be oblivious to the gusts. The footage from our test flight demonstrated just how good the image stabilisation is, with the only evidence of the wind being the howling audio rather than a shaky video. It really is quite impressive.

Controlling the Karma was unbelievably simple to the point where if you had never flown a drone before, you probably wouldn’t have any issues piloting this one. For some, it might be too simple, but we loved it. The joysticks were great, offering great traction, and from our experience, there was very little lag between us moving our thumbs and the Karma moving in the direction we commanded.

It’s worth noting that the Karma has a maximum distance of 1000-metres and a maximum speed of 35mph.

Pocket-lint

First Impressions

We are big fans of the GoPro Karma drone. Yes, it misses a couple of features off its spec sheet, but the foldable design is great, the usability is great and the footage we obtained during our test flight was great, especially in the conditions.

Simplicity and portability are at the Karma’s core and these two features are what makes this drone so much fun. There’s hardly anything to figure out. Instead, it’s simply a case of unfolding Karma from its very cute backpack and getting it in the sky, in what is literally a matter of minutes.

We’d liked to have seen a longer flight time than a maximum of 20 minutes and it would have been nice to see auto-follow functionality, but based on our first impressions, there is a lot to love about Karma and we can’t wait to review it in full.

GoPro’s Karma will be available from 23 October, costing £720 / $799. 

Oculus Rift now available in UK stores, get a demo in John Lewis and other shops

Although UK customers have been able to order the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset from the company’s US website, the device is now officially available to buy from several UK stores today, 20 September.

John Lewis, Curry’s PC World, Game and Harrods all stock the £549 headset, while Amazon.co.uk now offers the Oculus Rift for delivery without lengthy shipping times from the States.

Interested parties can also visit stores to get demo time with a Rift, in order to find out what the fuss is all about themselves.

Head to live.oculus.com and you can search by postcode for the nearest store featuring live demos. We found John Lewis and Game branches in London, for example. Other stores around the country might be more suitable for you.

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The Oculus Rift headset is the only main device on the market that comes with integrated headphones – both the HTC Vive and forthcoming PlayStation VR devices require separate audio hardware.

It features two 1080 x 1200 pixel OLED screens – one for each eye – running at 90Hz (frames per second), ensuring high quality, smooth action, preventing eye strain or nausea. And there are now plenty of games and experiences available to download through the online Oculus Store.

Pocket-lint is currently in the process of testing the headset fully and will post an in-depth review soon.