Apple Is Tweaking Apple Watches In The US To Circumvent Ban

Photo 226959658 © Shubhashish Chakrabarty | Dreamstime.com

Apple has endured some heart-palpitating issues lately, and it has now decided to remove the blood oxygen monitoring feature from its latest Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches.

This move comes as a direct response to a patent dispute with Masimo Corp, which led to a US import ban on these devices. The US International Trade Commission had ruled in October that the tech giant’s devices infringed on Masimo patents related to blood-oxygen measurement.

To sidestep this import ban, Apple came up with a software workaround, which it presented to the US Customs and Border Protection. The agency gave the green light to this change, concluding that the redesigned Apple watches no longer fell under the import ban's restrictions.

This prohibition had initially caused Apple to halt sales of these smartwatches right before Christmas, a crucial sales period. However, an interim stay was granted, allowing Apple to resume sales in the US towards the end of December.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple’s operations team has already begun distributing the modified Series 9 and Ultra 2 watches, sans the blood-oxygen feature, across US retail locations.

While a federal appeals court is set to consider Apple’s request for a continued stay on the ban, existing owners of the Series 9 and Ultra 2 in the US are likely to keep the blood oxygen feature.

This feature removal is not expected to affect models sold in other countries.

Apple is also reportedly working on a software update to tweak the Blood Oxygen app's algorithms, aiming to steer clear of Masimo’s patented technology.

Masimo, on its part, has welcomed Apple’s redesign decision. A spokesperson for Masimo told MacRumors that it’s great that “one of the world’s largest and most powerful companies” is being accountable and taking steps to respect the intellectual property of smaller companies.

[via Digital Trends, TIME, MacRumors, cover photo 226959658 © Shubhashish Chakrabarty | Dreamstime.com]