This looks like it’s only through facetime? Do people really facetime their therapist? I expected zoom or some website with video chat built in that telehealth providers use.
Online therapy doesn't have to be HIPAA compliant on technology used to communicate with the client. If the client wants to use FaceTime, they have to inform them that it's not HIPAA-compliant and confirm that they're OK to continue. HIPAA comes into play if the therapist wants to securely share client care notes with another care provider.
This is true. That said the agreement with the insurance provider or billing processer often requires a hipaa compliant platform with a BAA.
I bill through the headway platform as an example and they require a hipaa compliant telehealth platform with BAA for processing. In addition I believe my contract with Aetna specifies the same although it’s been awhile since I’ve reviewed it tbf.
an interesting question that comes up for me is whether these companies are harvesting content of meetings and chats for training models and whatnot. The BAA is a (small) protection for myself in case it turns out that zoom is training their AI assistant on meeting chats or closed captioning without participant consent. Although I would hope that the liability in that scenario would mostly fall on zoom as that’s really an abuse on their part.
Sure but zoom is hipaa compliant and FaceTime is not. Apple refuses to share a business associate agreement whereas zoom shares this with paid plans. I do agree that I seriously question the security of the small telehealth platforms that cropped up during Covid though, hipaa compliant or not. I am certain apple does security significantly better than simplepractice, doxy.me, etc but it’s the regulatory piece of handling PHI. The BAA is essential to that and apple/discord/etc have made it clear through their silence after years that they don’t want to be responsible for safe data handling of phi.
Bottom line though is if your therapist is using FaceTime/discord/etc they are ignorant to hipaa protocols or not practicing ethically, both are concerning. Very frustrating from a consumer perspective because how the fuck are you supposed to know what is and isn’t hipaa compliant. It’s silly to have to research whether your clinician is using a regulatory compliant platform but here we are, I guess
Not to feed the troll, but there’s ~1.5B active iPhone users. That’s 20% of all people globally use an iPhone. You really feel confident making this claim? Would you apply the same claim to Android users?
Also, I don’t see why Zoom would be more trusted. FaceTime is end to end encrypted and Apple has a decent reputation with how they approach privacy and pretty well respected for security. Certainly would trust it more over zoom or some random white labeled 3p telehealth video conferencing solution.
It’s part of the webcam feed provided by the OS to apps on the latest macOS. This means the effects apply across all apps. You can increase lighting adjustment (aka Studio Light) and depth of field with sliders in the system menu bar, as well as toggle thede reactions on and off. They’re on by default.
For what it’s worth the lighting and background blur effects are really good, much better than the tuning built into Zoom. I’m leaving the reactions on too for the comedy for now but I’ll probably turn them off eventually.
It doesn’t work over google meet. The other person was wrong, it does not apply to the OS video feed, apps have to explicitly support it in some manner.
might be browser based then. I tested in several different apps and google meet was the only one that didn't work, and I refuse to use Chrome, so it might just not work in firefox. point is, it isn't universal, there are apps it doesn't work in, else my testing wouldn't have shown failure at all.
I see. I thought it was only on FaceTime because the fix was to enter the camera settings from there. I know facetime ships with the OS but that settings really should be accessible from the normal settings applet
It happened to me in the app mentioned in the article, not FaceTime, on ios. it also occurred to me in a zoom in macOS. Seems to work in any video calling app.
If you still don't understand: this feature and setting used to not exist. Now it does. And it's on by default. So, it has been turned on for everyone.
This is a thing that used to not exist, and now it exists for everyone using this OS. And they will not know what it is or how to turn it off unless they are told by someone else.
One day, you get into your car and start driving. But the horn honks whenever you press on the accelerator. An angry drivers rolls down their window and yells at you: "What are you, stupid? The car company went into all of the cars last night and modified them. You need to open the trunk and disconnect the 'honk while accelerating wire'! Jeeze, how can you be so clueless?"
In software development, a lot of new features are on by default. If Apple hid every new feature behind a on/off setting, no one would enable new features, ever.
I really love Mac’s new effect of clicking the desktop which moves all windows away to see your files underneath. Had that feature been added and off by default, there’s zero chance I would have ever enabled it.
Yes, I’ve had the reactions inadvertently appear in business calls recently, but it generally just results in amusement from everyone in the meeting. Although I suppose it would kind of suck to accidentally activate the laser show effect if I’m being interviewed on live TV. (Although anyone being interviewed like that should be prepped by the show to get all the settings right for broadcast)
If Apple hid every new feature behind a on/off setting, no one would enable new features, ever.
That's because they hide the on/off settings. Discoverability is no longer considered a worthwhile design goal. Apple's attitude comes down to, "You're either with it, or you're not."
(Yes, that's as inherently exclusionary as it sounds. It's astonishing to watch the irony elude nominally-progressive companies like Apple.)
Don't forget the settings Apple hides because they do not want you to disable them. Bluetooth is my particular grievance. Another cute one is that you can ask Siri to turn GPS on, but she will not turn it off (will just display the GPS toggle).
You could not just re-enable it through the same mechanism in which it was disabled? Or a confirmation if moving at highway speeds + navigation active?
Anytime a potentially privacy disrespecting setting is hidden by barriers, I withhold the benefit of the doubt when it comes to trillion dollar companies.
Voice control on Siri is finicky and losing GPS is more “destructive” that enabling it for most users. For example, I wouldn’t be happy if Siri hears abother person talk over me asking to turn off location services, and then grab the phone out of my hand. I feel like my privacy is protected because Apple devices prompt for permission before allowing an application to access location information, including for system services, and require a second prompt before an app can access location data in the background.
> Don't forget the settings Apple hides because they do not want you to disable them. Bluetooth is my particular grievance.
I am sorry, they do? Because afaik on iOS, it is Settings->Bluetooth->on/off toggle. It is in the top 3 entries once you open Settings app, no need to even search for it.
Same with WiFi. And both of them stay off if you disable them from there. It is a temporary “off” state if you turn it off from the control center (which is the non-obvious flow compared to plain settings approach; however, it tells you that), but permanent if you do it through settings app.
This doesn't hold water considering Apple doesn't let you run apps installed outside the Mac App Store without going into System Preferences and manually enabling it for every single non-Store app.
This is more likely the decision of a product team that needed to measure engagement on a new 'feature' and set it on by default to pick up data right away.
> I really love Mac’s new effect of clicking the desktop which moves all windows away to see your files underneath. Had that feature been added and off by default, there’s zero chance I would have ever enabled it.
That isn’t on by default though. Upon upgrade you’re presented with an option as to whether you want to turn it on or leave it off.
Whereas this camera gesture change has no warning. It’s new and unexpected behaviour.
Strange that there wasn’t something similar for the camera effects feature which seems like a more substantial piece of functionality than a setting for moving windows around.
> Although anyone being interviewed like that should be prepped by the show to get all the settings right for broadcast
"So, I'm here to prep you for the TV interview, let us begin by checking and making sure the stupidity that the maker of your operating system has sadly activated for you are turned off...".
Yay, buy a MacBook Pro, some dollars you pay were spent to make all this idiocy!
To me, these effects are akin to adding sugar and fats to food to enhance the flavor of the foods. I really don't need my interactions more enhanced. The other party's emotions, expressions, etc... are enough.
It's even more ridiculous than that. I don't need my OS enhancing my own gesticulations. I am enough all by myself (thank you very much).
For me, apparently I like to stick out my thumb and then index finger, when I say "first (second, third)", which triggers thumbs up first and baloons second. Really? Totally unhelpful and awkward.
This happened to me in a recent work meeting, we were using Google Meet and suddenly the video had a huge animated thumbs up emoji dancing across the screen.
If I’m understanding the feature you’re talking about, that’s not an automatic reaction based on expressions (like this article/feature). That was shown because someone clicked the thumbs up emoji on their Meet UI.
I’m pretty familiar with the Meet UI thumbs up feature and this was not it. The other person didn’t take any action other than making a actual thumbs up with their hand. They were confused by the visual as well and it distracted us from the call enough that he ended up investigating and it turned out to be the new Apple feature.
Edited to add: FWIW they were on the latest macOS and I wasn’t.
Apple’s new filters and animations work against any software using the webcam. Including Google Meets via your web browser.
That’s the problem with this new feature. It’s on by default and alters the feed for other software.
It’s not all bad though. The filters are actually pretty nice. But expressions, on the other hand, get accidentally triggered often and really shouldn’t be gesture operated (or at least disabled by default)
maybe it's a firefox thing? I am on google meet right now and I've literally tried several things and it does not work. But still, clearly it does not automatically work in every application, as I took the time to open several different apps and test which ones it worked in.
That one got so popular because it touched on several relevant aspects of the cultural zeitgeist
- the struggle of everyone moving to remote work
- the perceived inability of the older generation to keep up
- the perceived ridiculousness of some of the features tech companies were including to try to win the arms race (even though as the article correctly points out this particular feature is decades old, it symbolized a wider trend)
I was in court a lot during COVID. It was funny how many lawyers and defendants were sideways on their Zoom calls due to some issue with the software that couldn't correctly handle vertical calls.
And lawyers were all doing their calls from wherever they were. Often in their cars. One lawyer doing his court appearances while shopping at Whole Foods.
I would like to live in a world where an operating system is about enabling technology, performance, reliability and security. An OS should not be about animated emojis , or about running a CV program detecting what's going on in the video feed of the hardware, and manipulating it.
Apple still makes some of the best hardware I know, but gosh, the software they make...
The effects like background blur and “studio light” substantially improve the practical performance of the webcam and do so across all apps that capture video. The reactions are funny/annoying but as a whole the new video effect feature is the biggest improvement for me in this OS update - I’m on video calls every day sometimes in mediocre light and appreciate how much better I come through with “studio light” tuning the exposure of my face. I was considering spending $$$ on a fancy new webcam, but now I don’t feel the need.
> it's not and should not be the responsibility of the OS to apply effects or manipulate or alter the data of the hardware.
This position is unworkable in so many cases, but it's especially so for cameras. The data coming out of these sensors is awful, and requires several computationally-expensive passes to clean up. Once you grant that there is a spectrum of data manipulation where reasonable defaults must be selected, you grant that your stated position is unrealistic.
Sure, using software to improve the limitations of the hardware (making you look better with lighting) is a welcome feature... Using software without me enabling it to add dancing monkeys (to be announced with fanfare in WWDC 2024 - amazing! Magical!) onto my webcam feed, not really...
I can't think of anything more depressing about modern life than the concept of telehealth therapy. En masse we have swapped in-person interaction for an unsatisfying, vapid mirage that barely resembles it. The novel mental disorders that emerge as a result cannot be fixed with more of the same.
And at the same time, many people who couldn’t easy travel to offices due to family, disability or other issues now have a way to access mental health services. People who are open to having honest helpful discussions can use telehealth and achieve worthwhile results.
Therapy would be completely inaccessible to me without telehealth. It's a massive boon. The downsides of not being physically present with my therapist are heavily outweighed by the added benefits of having regular and consistent access to said therapist.
It takes something that would otherwise be an irregular and stressful chore and makes it predictable and pleasant and something I look forward to -- and that helps make therapy a useful tool where I can pick things to work on, process how I'm doing, and plan next steps on a regular basis.
I also think it's worth noting that the point of therapy is not really to form or reinforce a friendship with a therapist? This isn't like a long distance romantic or platonic relationship, my therapist is not a buddy. Therapy is a tool. I am not trying to form an emotional connection with my therapist; my therapist is there to help me process and plan and work on parts of my life that I want to improve. That's not to say that the human part of therapy isn't important, but it's important because of how it services that goal.
A therapist is not a substitute for other human interaction, it's designed to be a one-way relationship. A therapist should not be the primary way that anyone is fulfilling their needs for human intimacy or vulnerability; what a therapist can do is help you identify if you're not meeting those needs and help you form an actionable plan for you to meet them better in your regular life.
> unsatisfying, vapid mirage that barely resembles it
You seem to have a problem with projection. Have you considered seeing a therapist for this problem? If in-person therapy is inaccessible to you, have you considered teletherapy? It has benefits over traditional therapy, especially for those struggling with mental illnesses like agoraphobia or depression. Depression, an insidious disease, makes it hard to even get out of bed and off Netflix. Teletherapy is able to help in those cases as it is accessible without leaving bed or the house. I hope we can agree that some help is better than no help.
I know a couple who are in a long distance relationship and regularly do telehealth therapy. They said it has helped hold them together.
Even if a couple lives near each other, I could totally imagine 1 or both in the relationship thinking in-person therapy is too dire an action to take but telehealth seems more doable. Better some therapy than none right? It could also be that in-person therapy is significantly more expensive than what a couple is able/willing to pay.
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[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 121 ms ] thread[0]: https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/cache/media_attachments/fi...
[0] https://xoxo.zone/@mathowie/111229500871588422
Why not Facetime?
I bill through the headway platform as an example and they require a hipaa compliant telehealth platform with BAA for processing. In addition I believe my contract with Aetna specifies the same although it’s been awhile since I’ve reviewed it tbf.
an interesting question that comes up for me is whether these companies are harvesting content of meetings and chats for training models and whatnot. The BAA is a (small) protection for myself in case it turns out that zoom is training their AI assistant on meeting chats or closed captioning without participant consent. Although I would hope that the liability in that scenario would mostly fall on zoom as that’s really an abuse on their part.
Bottom line though is if your therapist is using FaceTime/discord/etc they are ignorant to hipaa protocols or not practicing ethically, both are concerning. Very frustrating from a consumer perspective because how the fuck are you supposed to know what is and isn’t hipaa compliant. It’s silly to have to research whether your clinician is using a regulatory compliant platform but here we are, I guess
Also, I don’t see why Zoom would be more trusted. FaceTime is end to end encrypted and Apple has a decent reputation with how they approach privacy and pretty well respected for security. Certainly would trust it more over zoom or some random white labeled 3p telehealth video conferencing solution.
For what it’s worth the lighting and background blur effects are really good, much better than the tuning built into Zoom. I’m leaving the reactions on too for the comedy for now but I’ll probably turn them off eventually.
Found instructions here: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-video-conferenc...
I haven’t investigated much further but it’s possible the settings are per-app or something.
Right up there in the menu bar glowing green for you
If you still don't understand: this feature and setting used to not exist. Now it does. And it's on by default. So, it has been turned on for everyone.
This is a thing that used to not exist, and now it exists for everyone using this OS. And they will not know what it is or how to turn it off unless they are told by someone else.
One day, you get into your car and start driving. But the horn honks whenever you press on the accelerator. An angry drivers rolls down their window and yells at you: "What are you, stupid? The car company went into all of the cars last night and modified them. You need to open the trunk and disconnect the 'honk while accelerating wire'! Jeeze, how can you be so clueless?"
In software development, a lot of new features are on by default. If Apple hid every new feature behind a on/off setting, no one would enable new features, ever.
I really love Mac’s new effect of clicking the desktop which moves all windows away to see your files underneath. Had that feature been added and off by default, there’s zero chance I would have ever enabled it.
Yes, I’ve had the reactions inadvertently appear in business calls recently, but it generally just results in amusement from everyone in the meeting. Although I suppose it would kind of suck to accidentally activate the laser show effect if I’m being interviewed on live TV. (Although anyone being interviewed like that should be prepped by the show to get all the settings right for broadcast)
That's because they hide the on/off settings. Discoverability is no longer considered a worthwhile design goal. Apple's attitude comes down to, "You're either with it, or you're not."
(Yes, that's as inherently exclusionary as it sounds. It's astonishing to watch the irony elude nominally-progressive companies like Apple.)
Anytime a potentially privacy disrespecting setting is hidden by barriers, I withhold the benefit of the doubt when it comes to trillion dollar companies.
I am sorry, they do? Because afaik on iOS, it is Settings->Bluetooth->on/off toggle. It is in the top 3 entries once you open Settings app, no need to even search for it.
Same with WiFi. And both of them stay off if you disable them from there. It is a temporary “off” state if you turn it off from the control center (which is the non-obvious flow compared to plain settings approach; however, it tells you that), but permanent if you do it through settings app.
So, being in control of my own thinking adult destiny? How horrible.
This is more likely the decision of a product team that needed to measure engagement on a new 'feature' and set it on by default to pick up data right away.
That isn’t on by default though. Upon upgrade you’re presented with an option as to whether you want to turn it on or leave it off.
Whereas this camera gesture change has no warning. It’s new and unexpected behaviour.
Strange that there wasn’t something similar for the camera effects feature which seems like a more substantial piece of functionality than a setting for moving windows around.
"So, I'm here to prep you for the TV interview, let us begin by checking and making sure the stupidity that the maker of your operating system has sadly activated for you are turned off...".
Yay, buy a MacBook Pro, some dollars you pay were spent to make all this idiocy!
Unfair take meet hyperbole take.
For me, apparently I like to stick out my thumb and then index finger, when I say "first (second, third)", which triggers thumbs up first and baloons second. Really? Totally unhelpful and awkward.
I think these are completely different things.
Edited to add: FWIW they were on the latest macOS and I wasn’t.
That’s the problem with this new feature. It’s on by default and alters the feed for other software.
It’s not all bad though. The filters are actually pretty nice. But expressions, on the other hand, get accidentally triggered often and really shouldn’t be gesture operated (or at least disabled by default)
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56010156
- the struggle of everyone moving to remote work
- the perceived inability of the older generation to keep up
- the perceived ridiculousness of some of the features tech companies were including to try to win the arms race (even though as the article correctly points out this particular feature is decades old, it symbolized a wider trend)
- a somewhat humorous spin on all of the above
And lawyers were all doing their calls from wherever they were. Often in their cars. One lawyer doing his court appearances while shopping at Whole Foods.
Apple still makes some of the best hardware I know, but gosh, the software they make...
What if the operating system started to bleep out swear words from the microphone? Or blurring out obscene gestures?
Sure, make the software available on install, or even prompt it's configuration and opt in on installation.
But it's not and should not be the responsibility of the OS to apply effects or manipulate or alter the data of the hardware.
This position is unworkable in so many cases, but it's especially so for cameras. The data coming out of these sensors is awful, and requires several computationally-expensive passes to clean up. Once you grant that there is a spectrum of data manipulation where reasonable defaults must be selected, you grant that your stated position is unrealistic.
It takes something that would otherwise be an irregular and stressful chore and makes it predictable and pleasant and something I look forward to -- and that helps make therapy a useful tool where I can pick things to work on, process how I'm doing, and plan next steps on a regular basis.
I also think it's worth noting that the point of therapy is not really to form or reinforce a friendship with a therapist? This isn't like a long distance romantic or platonic relationship, my therapist is not a buddy. Therapy is a tool. I am not trying to form an emotional connection with my therapist; my therapist is there to help me process and plan and work on parts of my life that I want to improve. That's not to say that the human part of therapy isn't important, but it's important because of how it services that goal.
A therapist is not a substitute for other human interaction, it's designed to be a one-way relationship. A therapist should not be the primary way that anyone is fulfilling their needs for human intimacy or vulnerability; what a therapist can do is help you identify if you're not meeting those needs and help you form an actionable plan for you to meet them better in your regular life.
You seem to have a problem with projection. Have you considered seeing a therapist for this problem? If in-person therapy is inaccessible to you, have you considered teletherapy? It has benefits over traditional therapy, especially for those struggling with mental illnesses like agoraphobia or depression. Depression, an insidious disease, makes it hard to even get out of bed and off Netflix. Teletherapy is able to help in those cases as it is accessible without leaving bed or the house. I hope we can agree that some help is better than no help.
Even if a couple lives near each other, I could totally imagine 1 or both in the relationship thinking in-person therapy is too dire an action to take but telehealth seems more doable. Better some therapy than none right? It could also be that in-person therapy is significantly more expensive than what a couple is able/willing to pay.