Hand and Heart on Apple Watch Series 4’s ECG App

Apple’s latest watch software update upgrades the heart monitoring capabilities of all Apple Watches and finally lights up Series 4’s Electrocardiogram reader

Apple Watch is the Tom Cruise of tech gadgets, always popping up in the news for heroically saving a regular person’s life.

Almost since the Apple Watch launched in 2015, there’ve been stories of the wearable’s built-in heart rate monitor catching irregular heartbeats: A high school senior almost ignores chest and back pain until he noticed that his heart rate was spiking on the Apple Watch. The high school cheerleader and athlete whose Apple Watch alerted her to abnormal spikes and dips in her heart rate and later found out she had a life-threatening kidney condition. The Australian tech journalist whose Apple Watch helped alert him to the fact that his heart was in almost constant atrial fibrillation. There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of stories like these.

This wearable heroism hasn’t gone unnoticed by Apple. Apple CEO Tim Cook often receives emails and letters thanking him. Sometimes he acknowledges them publicly. More importantly, Apple decided to get serious about healthcare, turning the Apple Watch from a best-selling wearable into, with…