Important/ urgent info for Spike app users

I just logged in to make sure this news was posted, also thought of you - so glad to see you’ve posted this!

 

Bumping to raise visibility of yr post, @Mel dCP . Maybe worthwhile posting on the Blood Glucose Monitoring thread too, where the geeks hang out?

There's going to be a few surprised spikers over the next few days.

It's a scunner/stunner/Pearl Harbour for all the good efforts Spike have put in - shame that the mighty Apple have screwed it for them. I never trusted Steve Jobs and his cheesy little polo neck sweaters.

The bit about switching it to Ignition isn't entirely hopeful - says their certs might be revoked periodically every so often, probably at the random times when we need it most.

If I was on ios, I'd be doing a back-up plan to get round the uncertainties of this.

Cheap and cheerful android phone, say, an LG K8 2017, just over £100 from Argos, is solid with xDrip+, the 14 December 2018 version is working good for me on that phone.

For anyone interested in that route, the releases are here, click the "assets" arrow, then download and install the file with the .apk extension.

https://github.com/NightscoutFoundation/xDrip/releases

Certificates, pah, what are they...

 

A platform which establishes trust and verifies the identity and veracity of pretty much anything anyone does with a modern device whether that be comnunicating across the Internet or executing third party code. The system annoyingly provides for service owners to prove they are who they say they are. Unimportant things like your banks' website and/or apps, online shopping, services which use or contain personal or sensitive data (finance, health, social media etc.), authentication for websites and services you may wish to use such as a diabetes forum. Really quite a stupid invention all told - imagine the fun we could have filling out payment details for that TV on offer and not knowing if the information was transferred to Argos/Amazon/Currys etc. to process the order or some bad lad in Wolverhampton who is about to process your credit card details for sale on the dark web.

I know the comment was flippant but people are likely to read this and be annoyed that some bloody security thing has temporarily incovenienced them and they should get rid of things like that because they just want their bloody apps to work without having to do things that keep themselves and the platform they're using secure because it'll never happen to them, ..right?

Apple is in a bit of a tough one - do they ignore rampant abuse of their enterprise certificate scheme by a major platform and get dragged through the mud by the press for allowing widespread data harvesting like that to occur on their platform (which as a company they've always strongly opposed) or do they be seen to respond and reassure the vast majority of their customers by cracking down on such abuse with some collateral damage and upset a minority of users with edge cases of useful functionality?

I can foresee a future where Google decides 'sod the risk' of continuing to allow app sideloading on Android on the same device where you might pay for goods and services or make medical decisions.

 

If you are going to do this, be aware that Ignition uses dodgy certificates from random Enterprise Certificate accounts. Given that this issue is caused by Apple cracking down on users using enterprise certificates (that are supposed to be used within a company) to distribute software (as Facebook did, which brought it all to light). This could be made much easier if the devs weren't using third party paid for libraries, but that's life I guess.

 

So.. updated to ignite a few days back and all was good. Connected daughter up tonight, Nightscout and xdrip working on her phone, no spike follower on my iPhone now, the app wouldn’t verify and now after reinstall doesn’t give option to add cert :/
Back to sugarmate and no predictive till they fix.. I hope they do, love spike!

 

@Mel dCP , if memory serves, Johan Degraeve was writing an ios version of xDrip+ , iosxdripreader, and then I think he put that on hold and got involved with the Spike people.

I've had a glance at his site for iosxdripreader, and there's been a continuing series of releases up till as recently as March this year.

https://github.com/JohanDegraeve/iosxdripreader

I've not a clue about iphones or iosxdripreader, but I wonder whether it might be worthwhile googling a bit to find out if anything is being said about getting round the spike issues by using iosxdripreader?

How good the app is I have no idea.

If you're using the Samsung, those have notoriously quirky bluetooth issues. Samsung users often get messages in xDrip+ saying "Buggy Samsung - using workaround"

Another thing to watch out for is that if the miaomiao is paired with spike on the iphone, if you then try to connect to xdrip as well I suspect strange things will happen, so if there is any option in spike for "unpairing" it, go for that. I'm really just speculating about this, but I mention it because I recall from my blucon days that if people had both its native app linkblucon and xdrip on the same phone it just wouldn't work and they had to not only close linkblucon but also completely delete it from the phone. It seemed that evenbwhen closed linkblucon was forcing a connection so the poor wee tramsmitter didn't know which app to talk to. Like I say, don't know if you might have that issue with the two phones gig, but something to bear in mind as a possibility if it's not playing the game.

 

Crikey, lol, I was forgetting mm had it's own inhouse app!

Sorry, don't know - just having xdrip on the phone was enough for me, so never got around to exploring the mysteries of nightscout.


Incidentally, on that question of whether or not libre version 2 will screw up miaomiao or not, I noticed this tweet by OceanTragic the other day. He seems to be involved with #wearenotwaiting. The link in the tweet says that the xdrip/spike folks have solved it but it'll require a software update in the transmitter and some transmitters might need to be sent back to the manufacturers for that.

It's puzzling, though: there is very little on the linked site and I haven't seen mention of it elsewhere. It's in Polish with an English translation, which makes sense as I recall the lead on this was a Pole, Marek Macner. I suppose the veracity of it will become clearer as time goes by.

https://mobile.twitter.com/OceanTragic/status/1110173081413263361

https://idiab.dev

 

I got the notification but Spike is still working for me; I tried Tomato but the alarms were irritating and the accuracy seemed way out (making the alarms even more irritating). I’ll see how long the Spike limps along for... from what I’ve read above I don’t want to compromise my iPhone security any more than I have done already with app center.

I’ve now got the Libre on prescription so there’s no sense for me to switch back to the Dexcom. If Spike stops working I may just go back to 100% scanning, I can’t say I’ve been wholly impressed with the accuracy, even calibrating twice a day. It’s great having my BG on my watch though; at least I can keep an eye on trends whilst I’m at work and react appropriately. (And usually work is the only place I consistently carry my phone around with me!) When I’m out running it’s not reliable enough, though (and I struggle to read the Spike Sport app on my Garmin); I’ve found a neat little wrist pouch that holds the Libre reader and its presence on my wrist is a good reminder to scan on long runs!

 

Talk about tempting fate! Spike has just stopped working for me a verification error. :-(

 

Hi, as someone who's just ordered the MM (not arrived yet) and who'd also been looking forward to a bit of seamless integration with the iPhone and Apple watch, has anyone got any tips for the best apps to use now? Haven't installed the Spike app yet anyway...Chances are the Apple compatibility certificate might come back (big maybe, I know) but if not I take it the watch will be out at least.
Thanks

 

Hi
Can someone help me , I’ve bought a MiaoMiao for my 10 year old daughter. But what app can I use now spike not available. We all have iPhones so can anybody help me

Regards
Gareth

 

Thanks Mel. I'll go for that when MM arrives. Like you, I find the Omnipod with Libre has changed my diabetic control 100% and I thought I was OK before... In the 40 odd years I've been T1 the changes now, although needing a lot more personal control - never a bad thing - are getting us all on the right track. Watching my father, who'd also been T1 for 60 years before he died, was a real boost. No blood glucose meters then yet he played hockey for Scotland, determined that life came first...

 

Ok thanks

 

Not sure if posted elsewhere (on mobile app in the airport) but I went through this guide using my Mac last night and it’s all good! Back on spike.. trialing a week or two with personal licence, but if a good I will buy an apple dev licence and then it’s good for a year without having to resign the app.

Phew.. back to spike!! Sugarmate just doesn’t cut it..

https://spike-app.com/install-spike-using-xcode/

 

Hi I’m new to all of this I am currently using tomato with my Miao Miao and Libre, but spike seems to be the most popular.
I don’t own a pc, just a Iphone and I pad, how do I continually sign and renew with a Pc if I want to swap over?