Latest news with #bloodoxygen
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Apple Adds Redesigned Blood Oxygen Feature After Legal Dispute
After a long legal battle over intellectual property with medical technology startup Masimo, Apple (AAPL, Financials) started rolling out a new blood oxygen capability to some Apple Watch customers on Thursday. The company noted that a recent ruling by U.S. Customs made the upgrade possible for Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Ultra 2 devices. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 5 Warning Signs with NVDA. In 2023, the International Trade Commission ruled that Apple's blood oxygen sensors violated Masimo's patents. As a result, the business stopped selling some models and sold modified versions without the feature. Apple claimed that consumers who don't have the feature yet can get it by updating their iPhone to iOS 18.6.1 and their Apple Watch to watchOS 11.6.1. The Health app's Respiratory section will show the results. In the last several years, the business has added more health-related functions, such sleep apnea monitoring for the Apple Watch and hearing health features for the AirPods. Apple started its first big health research in five years in February. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Apple Adds Redesigned Blood Oxygen Feature After Legal Dispute
After a long legal battle over intellectual property with medical technology startup Masimo, Apple (AAPL, Financials) started rolling out a new blood oxygen capability to some Apple Watch customers on Thursday. The company noted that a recent ruling by U.S. Customs made the upgrade possible for Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Ultra 2 devices. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 5 Warning Signs with NVDA. In 2023, the International Trade Commission ruled that Apple's blood oxygen sensors violated Masimo's patents. As a result, the business stopped selling some models and sold modified versions without the feature. Apple claimed that consumers who don't have the feature yet can get it by updating their iPhone to iOS 18.6.1 and their Apple Watch to watchOS 11.6.1. The Health app's Respiratory section will show the results. In the last several years, the business has added more health-related functions, such sleep apnea monitoring for the Apple Watch and hearing health features for the AirPods. Apple started its first big health research in five years in February. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Sign in to access your portfolio
Forbes
6 hours ago
- Forbes
Apple Watch's Blood Oxygen Tracking Returns With Surprise iOS 18.6.1 Update For iPhone
Updated Aug.15 with more details of the update and how it will work. Apple today announced that it would release an iPhone update — and it's one that nobody had been expecting. The surprise release concerns a missing feature on the Apple Watch — blood oxygen monitoring, which was removed from some Apple Watches 18 months ago because of a legal dispute. The update has just gone live. You can read the background to the dispute here, and below I'll explain how to download the new software and why it's important. Which iPhones Can Run iOS 18.6.1? The new iOS 18.6.1 software is compatible with all iPhones from 2018 onwards. That means the iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max and iPhone Xr and all iPhones since, including the iPhone SE in both its second- and third-generation models. And all members of the iPhone 16 series are included, right up to the iPhone 16e. This is a medium-sized update, around 720MB on my iPhone 16 Pro Max, and it downloaded and installed in little more than 10 minutes. How To Get It The update arrived just after 10 a.m. Pacific on Aug. 14, 2025. You download it like this: open the iPhone Settings app, then choose General, followed by Software Update. Next, click on Download and Install, and it'll be on your phone shortly. iOS 18.6.1 — What's In The Release Apple's release notes were sparses but indicated the main function like this. 'This update provides a new Blood Oxygen experience for users in the United States with Apple Watch Series 9 and Series 10, and Apple Watch Ultra 2. Measurements are calculated on iPhone and viewed in the Health app,' the notes said. If you were wondering why Apple was releasing something for iPhone that affected the Apple Watch, there's your answer: you can read the data in the Health app on the iPhone, so an iPhone update was necessary to make that possible. This update is all about the Apple Watch update. The removal of the blood oxygen monitoring feature came at the beginning of 2024, so Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 had only been on sale for a little more than three months, and Series 10 hadn't launched. The absence of the blood oxygen monitoring feature was because of a legal dispute between Apple and medical technology company Masimo. This redesigned feature seems to avoid the dispute. 'This update was enabled by a recent U.S. Customs ruling,' Apple says. There's also an watchOS 11 update for those Apple Watch models the company mentions, but for the data to be read on the user's companion iPhone, the latest software is necessary. Apple's careful wording makes clear that the changes to the way the metric is now gathered is key to how the Masimo dispute has been circumvented. Until now, on watches capable of the old-style blood oxygen monitoring, you sat quietly for 15 seconds while the app measured your blood oxygen. Now, the reading is similar but the data it collects is transmitted to the iPhone and the calculation of what it means is worked out there. It's viewable in the Health app on the iPhone, which is almost as convenient as the original method, and a godsend to the millions of Apple Watch 9, 10 and Ultra 2 users who can now access it for the first time. And it's good timing: this system will likely be in place for the Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch Ultra 3, both expected to be unveiled next month. You can read more about the changes to Apple Watch, and why it's important, here.
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Apple Watch Just Brought Back This Health Feature
Apple's long-lost blood oxygen tracking feature for its smartwatch is finally coming back to the United States after a long legal battle. The Apple Watch sensors will now collect the data and then send it to a paired iPhone to be measured and calculated. You'll be able to see the results in the Respiratory section of the Health app on your phone. The feature, which was removed at the end of 2023 due to a patent infringement lawsuit from Masimo Corp. and a US Customs injunction, is returning for Apple Watch owners who purchased models with the feature disabled. The workaround is rolling out in iOS 18.6.1 and watchOS 11.6.1. The feature was first introduced in the Series 6 Apple Watches back in 2020, but in 2023, Masimo, a company that makes its wearables with pulse oximeters, convinced the US International Trade Commission (ITC) that Apple's technology for reading blood oxygen levels infringed on its patents. This led to a ban on importing the Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches. Apple tried to fight it, even temporarily resuming sales before the ban was reinstated, which ultimately forced the company to remove the blood oxygen capabilities from its watches in the United States. The blood oxygen app is a big deal because it's such an advanced feature to lose. Older Apple Watches still had the feature, but any new models purchased in the United States since early 2024 were missing it entirely. So, if you were thinking of upgrading, you would lose a key feature that your current watch had. It's a redesigned Blood Oxygen feature for some Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Apple Watch Ultra 2 users. If you have one of these models, and it didn't come with the feature, you'll now be able to access it by updating your paired iPhone to iOS 18.6.1 and your Apple Watch to watchOS 11.6.1. The update won't affect older Apple Watch models that already have the original feature, or any watches purchased outside the United States. This update is a clever way to get around the legal issues, since the watch itself is just collecting the sensor data, and the iPhone is doing the calculating and displaying. Apple Watches seem to be advertised as a must-have for health and wellness, and the blood oxygen sensor is one of the big features. It is used to identify things like breathing problems, lung disease, and circulation issues, so having this back is also a big win for Apple. Source: Apple
Malay Mail
15 hours ago
- Health
- Malay Mail
Apple revives blood oxygen feature in latest Watch models after patent row pause
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 15 — Apple on Thursday said some of its top smartwatch models are getting a redesigned blood oxygen sensing feature, sidelined for several years by a patent dispute. Software updates will add the capability to an array of Series 9, Series 10, and Ultra 2 Apple Watch models, according to the iPhone maker. 'This update was enabled by a recent US Customs ruling,' Apple said in a blog post. Apple temporarily halted US sales of its latest smartwatch models last January as part of a patent feud with health company Masimo. Masimo, based in southern California, filed a complaint to the US International Trade Commission (ITC) which decided to halt imports of the Apple Watch models over a patented technology for detecting blood-oxygen levels. Apple manufactures the vast majority of its products overseas, giving the ITC jurisdiction over the patent feud. According to reports, Apple removed the technology from the smartwatches in question at the time and resumed selling them. Masimo argued that it invented the technology and that Apple poached key employees to win access to the know-how. But Apple contended that the ITC finding was in error and appealed the decision in US federal court. Apple strongly promotes its smartwatch's fitness and health features, which include detection of heartbeat irregularities, falls, sleep apnea, and harmful noise levels. — AFP
