New features of Apple iOS17 cause embarrassment, with fireworks effects appearing in remote medical videos

On October 15th, IT Home reported that SimplePractice, a company that provides remote medical platforms, recently issued a warning to patients, stating that Apple's "gesture to response" function in video calls may inadvertently cause people to emit heart-shaped expressions or virtual fireworks during remote medical video calls, leading to embarrassment.

According to a post by Matt Haughey on Mastodon, a friend of his was receiving a video consultation from a therapist when he thumbed up on a question from the therapist, resulting in a fireworks effect on the screen. SimplePractice informed patients that Apple devices may display emoticons during video calls, and SimplePractice cannot control these settings. SimplePractice provides guidance on how to turn off this feature on iOS and macOS.

IT Home has noticed that this feature is a new feature for iOS17 and macOSSonoma. When enabled (default), users can use gestures to display certain emoticons and animations. For example, creating a heart shape will add a heart shaped expression, while raising your thumbs with both hands will result in virtual fireworks. There are a total of eight responses that can be activated using gestures.

In general, this feature is still very interesting. However, in certain situations (such as video therapy sessions or important litigation calls), it may be a bit inappropriate. These special effects responses all use relatively common gestures, such as a single thumb, inverted thumb, and two peaceful gestures, which can generate responses, making it highly likely that these responses will be accidentally activated. And because these responses are enabled by default, people may trigger them without knowing.