This is the biggest scam in the App Store today and Apple is doing nothing about it
My wife is a diabetic and multiple times each day she has to draw blood from a finger and place it on a disposable test strip inserted into a glucometer. This machine spits out her blood sugar reading helping her determine how much insulin she needs to inject into her body. It's important for her to know this information because too large a dose could give her a low blood sugar or hypoglycemic reaction that could land her in a coma.
Misleading ad for Harmoni-Health & Sleep says you can test your blood sugar with the iPhone. | Image credit-PhoneArena
Poking yourself for the blood sample can be painful and the disposable test strips are expensive. This is why Apple has been working to develop a non-invasive blood glucose test for the Apple Watch. Samsung too is reportedly working on what we've called the "Holy Grail" for smartwatches.
Harmoni-Health & Sleep claims to measure your blood sugar using your iPhone and the app
The number of diabetics worldwide that take insulin daily is as high as 200 million people which makes them a pretty big target to be scammed. Recently my wife received an ad on her iPhone for an app called Harmoni-Health & Sleep which indicated that the app could obtain the user's blood glucose reading using the app on an iPhone. When I headed over to the App Store and looked at the app's listing, there was not one word of this amazing achievement.
Harmoni Health & Sleep app seems to claim in ads that its app can measure a user's blood glucose level. | Image credit-PhoneArena
There was a screenshot in the App Store listing for Harmoni that says "Track Health Trends" and it shows a Blood Sugar reading and a chart of someone's blood glucose trend. But all the page says is that the app "tracks" Heart Rate, Blood Pressure, Blood Sugar, and Blood Oxygen. By "track," the developers mean that you have you get your glucose reading the old-fashioned way through a glucometer and type the results in to the app. The app does not measure your blood glucose like it tries to get you to believe. The same applies for blood pressure readings.
Folks, don't you think that if there were a way to put your finger on an iPhone screen or camera lens and get your blood sugar or blood pressure, Apple would be announcing this in ads and news releases?
We always tell you to check the comments section in the App Store or Play Store looking for red flags before installing an app. The comments section for Harmoni-Health & Sleep shows a trio of fake five-star reviews. More likely to be true is a one-star review from May that says how an iPhone user received ads for the app that told him it will test his blood sugar without needles, show him his my blood pressure and more. He wrote that the app does not do what it claims to do.
"I kept getting ads for this app telling me it will test my blood sugar without needles, let me see my glycemic index, check my blood pressure, etc. Does it? NO. It absolutely does NOT do what the ads claim. Am hoping someone at Apple sees this and takes action, in the meantime I'm deleting the app (which almost snuck in a "Pro" version paid subscription) and paying a visit to the FTC website to see about reporting false advertising there."-Comment from b_s_l in the App Store.
Another one-star review referenced the same ad and pointed out that it included a disclaimer saying that the results may not be accurate. Look, this is a clever scam. In the App Store, Harmoni says it tracks your blood sugar and blood pressure which simply means you give it the numbers and it keeps track of your results. But ads for the app that are outside of Apple's jurisdiction make it appear as though the app will take your blood sugar and other important readings.
Apple recently got fooled twice by a developer that slipped apps with pirated video content into the App Store
It almost reminds me of another clever scheme that Apple fell for not once, but twice in short succession. Just last month we told you about the "Collect Cards: Store box" app that when tested by Apple in the U.S. was a "demure" app used to manage photos and videos. However, outside of the U.S., the app became a video streaming pirating scam showing content from Disney+, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, and HBO Max.
To make matters worse, after Apple booted the app out of the App Store, the developers repeated the same scam and got two more apps listed in the App Store (Collect Cards: Birthday Check and Collect Cards: Sugar). The new apps also illegally stream video content from other legitimate streaming platforms. What was it that Pete Townsend sang about not getting fooled again?
Harmoni-Health & Sleep isn't the only app that tries to confuse consumers by saying it will measure your blood sugar and blood pressure but only keeps track of the readings you provide it. This could be a serious problem that Apple needs to take action on now before some iPhone users lose their money paying for features that are advertised by developers but are not delivered.
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