A bodybuilder presses the iPhone’s camera with a fingertip, and his heart rate and blood oxygen levels appear on the screen. A fellow in pajamas steps onto a scale, peers at his smartphone, and sighs dejectedly. A runner races along the waterfront, a cellphone strapped to her pumping arms.
Apple’s television commercials for the iPhone 5 portrayed the device as not just a smartphone, but a health and fitness tool. And indeed, iPhones, Androids and now even the Apple Watch provide countless applications to help with motivation and organization. But a subset of these apps go further, purporting to function as medical devices — to track blood pressure, treat acne, even test urine samples. Amid a proliferation of such apps, physicians and federal regulators are sounding an alarm, saying that programs claiming to diagnose or treat medical conditions may be unreliable and even dangerous.
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