14 DAY TRIAL // A story about a 14-year-old allegedly discovering that pacemakers and iPads don’t blend could be overblown, as the iPad user guide itself mentions the same thing.
Bloomberg ran a story this week about a 14-year-old girl named Gianna Chien who had allegedly “discovered” that the magnets in iPads / Smart Covers can affect pacemakers.
Everyone got excited and spread the word about the discovery, but it was later revealed that Apple knew about this issue, and even mentioned it in the iPad user guide.
The documentation states, “iPad has magnets along the left edge of the device and on the right side of the front glass, which may interfere with pacemakers, defibrillators, or other medical devices.”
Apple carefully outlines that the iPad Smart Cover and iPad Smart Case also use magnets, and that users who have pacemakers implanted in their chests should maintain a distance of at least 6 inches (around 15 cm) between their chest and the tablet computer.