On Thursday afternoon, there was a strange sight on Apple.com–the Apple Watch Series 9, which arrived in September, was listed as “Currently Unavailable” for purchase. In fine print at the bottom of the tech specs was the reason: “Following December 24, 2023, Apple no longer sells Apple Watch units in the United States with the ability to measure blood oxygen.”
In an almost unbelievable situation, Apple is no longer permitted to sell the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 in the U.S. due to a dispute over its blood-oxygen sensor. A court ruling found that Apple infringed on two of Masimo’s patents for measuring blood oxygen, and since those two watches contain pulse oximeter sensors, they can no longer be sold online by Apple. That ban will extend to its retail stores and third-party sellers and shipments to Amazon and Best Buy after Christmas.
On Thursday, December 21, Apple stopped selling the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 on its online store.
Apple
According to Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, the inability to sell Apple Watches with blood-oxygen sensors extends to the ability to fix any Apple Watch with a blood-oxygen sensor. He reports that Apple has told staff that “it can’t replace out-of-warranty Series 6 and newer” for any reason.
It’s not clear what the next steps are or how long the ban will last. After a failed appeal, Apple was presumably hoping for President Biden to overturn the ban, but that hasn’t happened. Software engineers at Apple are reportedly “racing” to figure out how to continue selling the Apple Watch Series 9 with the existing sensor, but Masimo doesn’t think such a solution is possible without disabling the sensor altogether.
Author: Michael Simon, Executive Editor
Michael Simon has been covering Apple since the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with technology goes back to his first PC—the IBM Thinkpad with the lift-up keyboard for swapping out the drive. He's still waiting for that to come back in style tbh.