Masimo Proves New Apple Watch Series 9 Units Still Have the Blood Oxygen Sensor

Florian Mueller, writing at IP Fray:

The January 12, 2024 CBP order has recently been published (CBP webpage). The parties’ filings with the appeals court were heavily redacted where they discussed the enforcement dispute over Apple’s workaround. Now it’s a bit clearer what technical changes Apple made and why they managed to get their workaround Watches cleared. There is some hardware “designation” in the newer Watches that tells the software in those Watches not to perform pulse oximetry although all of the necessary components are present. Masimo managed to reenable pulse oximetry, but only after jailbreaking older iPhones and using them to manipulate the Watch, which constitutes a “significant alteration” of the product.

The fact that Masimo could reenable the feature by running some custom software on jailbroken older iPhones absolutely positively means that Apple itself can reactivate that feature for its customers in the event it prevails on appeal or, in the alternative, in late August 2028 at the latest (because the patents-in-suit expire then).

It’s been pretty clear since January that the sensors in dispute are still present in newly-sold Apple Watches, and they’re simply disabled in software, but this seemingly confirms it.

★ Thursday, 14 March 2024