
Tim Cook: 'Apple's Most Important Contribution to Mankind' Will Be in Health - sahin-boydas
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/01/08/cook-apple-health-most-important-contribution-to-mankind/
======
mch82
Well, it’s a pretty smart strategy to enter the health market. Hugely
valuable, hugely wasteful. High administrative barriers to entry that Apple
can afford to work through. Opportunities for both profit and positive social
impact.

~~~
mch82
Plus, a significant chunk of Walter Isaacon’s “Steve Jobs” focused on how
disjointed medical care is, how Jobs worked to overcome that by insisting
medical professionals coordinate his care, and how he hoped that he’d be one
of the last to die from the kind of cancer he had if he didn’t make it
(because he felt it should have been treatable if care had been properly
coordinated).

~~~
mimixco
If there was ever an "enterprise" business, it's healthcare. In it's entire
history, Apple has never made any enterprise products. They're a phone and
music company, and now they're going to save people's lives. More Kool-Aid,
anyone?

~~~
npunt
You're so missing the bigger picture. 'Healthcare' is just a subset of
'health'. Go back to first principles:

#1 people have always cared about their personal health and have always been
willing to spend a lot of time and money to improve it, and individuals are
ultimately the ones responsible for their health.

#2 Apple is a _computer_ company, and computers are the primary means of
personal empowerment that exists today. What you pay attention to, how you
organize your thoughts, and what you do is increasingly influenced and
mediated by computer interfaces and data.

Combine #1 and #2 and you get an increasingly powerful personal health market
that is on a collision course with the healthcare market. Ask any doctor -
patients are more informed than ever, and how medicine is practiced is
changing as a result. This isn't news.

The other dynamics you're not considering are that healthcare is much much
larger than whatever enterprise tech deployments exist today. Sure, Apple
isn't going to sign a service contract to customize an EMR for some hospital's
specific needs, but that's such a tiny part of what Health and Healthcare are.

~~~
mimixco
Those are great arguments, but I still don't agree. If you don't know you're
fat, a watch won't help you. If you don't get off the couch, a watch won't fix
that. Fitness trackers existed before Apple got involved and packaged them up
in pretty watch cases.

I don't think that people's needs and desires for healthcare can be translated
into profits for Apple. It's ok if Tim Cook believes that; I just don't.

------
mimixco
Give us a break. Their first most important contribution was the mass market
GUI and their last was the smartphone. Running out of innovative options,
they're really reaching here.

