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Pre-ban check-in Ultra Nines
- Thread starter danpass
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I don't have a series 9 but for safeties sake I turned automatic updates off on my watch.
there is no "ban", Apple plans to stop selling Ultra 2/AW9 soon.
And the ITC ruling does NOT impact existing Ultra2/AW9, nor any AW model 6,7,8 all of which have SpO2 sensor
You are overreacting...
You can read all about it in like 3 articles on the front page
This is a test of the emergency watch broadcasting system. This is only a test. If your Ultra2/9 was actually banned, government operatives will confiscate said contraband within the next 24 hours. If you haven't purchased one yet, you have 36 hours left.
Semi-temporary stoppage of U2 and A9 watch sales, due to a patent dispute concerning the O2 sensor.
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I know there is a legitimate problem, but it feels like some marketing is built in here. Ban going into effect < 1 week before Xmas conveniently after most early adopters have purchased. The timing just feels weird.
That’s an evil thought and now one that is truly planted in my brain. I was advised by a medical professional to get the AW9 (and not the SE) specifically b/c of the O2 sensor. I take Erythropoetin (a synthetic hormone that stimulates red blood cell production) b/c of anemia resulting from kidney failure.
If something was sold to me (or I purchased it) specifically b/c of medical utility and then that feature(s) were removed, well….I’d probably….I dunno, smash my watch with a hammer?
Whydid I have to read Macrumors as soon as I woke up ☹️
Tom
If a ban were to happen, you know exactly what is going to happen. Apple would probably introduce an OS update that disabled the hardware. Some owners of the affected watches will not update the OS which means the hardware would still function. They will then go on auction sites saying they have a super rare Apple watch that has a working oxygen sensor.
Or, you know, you could get your money back like a normal person and get another watch that measures O2. Or keep your watch and get a cheap finger O2 monitor until there’s a solution.
But really, you have very little to worry about. They’re not going to disable it on already sold watches, they just wouldn’t sell any more watches with that feature again until they have the issue settled.
Does any of you know if there is a proof that they will not disable it via FW later for old devices if e.g. after ban, the new version had to have FW with it disabled ?
AirPods MAX and AirPods Pro Gen1 were also nerfed if I remember properly due to patent issues
Above statement was never confirmed, more likely HW issues but my replacement pair with new brand new tips never were as good as first months of use
Above statement was never confirmed, more likely HW issues but my replacement pair with new brand new tips never were as good as first months of use
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If they disabled, Apple would be forced to issue refunds and you know that is not going to happen. You can trust that Apple is working on a fix to avoid legal problems and keep selling it's watch!
Do you have any more details on that? Google isn’t bringing up anything for me. There was a guy who sued Apple because he patented the concept of wireless earbuds and Apple settled out of court, but I can’t find anything about features being limited or removed.
Likely all AW will receive a software update to switch how the O2 sensor works in terms of algorithm. I turned off the auto-updates as the current version of this algorithm works quite well and has been battle tested for a while now.
yea, they could do that, change the algorithm, and at the same time I am not aware that Apple even publishes an "accuracy level", eg +/-3% or whatever, their page actually says this:
- Blood Oxygen app is for wellness purposes only and not for medical use.
As has been suggested in a few posts, "disabling" the blood oxygen feature would result in class action law suit and Apple would lose. They could issue a "recall", compensate people but I don't see this happening.
What is really baffling is how long this has been going on and how it is escalated now. There's a lot going on behind the scenes that we don't know ...
To be honest, this actually seems pretty conclusive to me. Even in the post where the guy makes the original claim, there’s a response debunking basically every point. Maybe I’m wrong and they did nerf the ANC, but there’s not really any evidence of that.
Well, even if that is spelled out, I have read enough to understand that the O2 sensor is on-par with a medical device in terms of accuracy with very little variance.
This has been going for long, but in terms of escalation, it doesn't surprise me as all this time, articles have come out in each step of the case on how things weren't going on Apple's way. This most recent decision was made a while back and has been dragged on for as long as possible.
Apple Working on Software Fix to Avoid U.S. Apple Watch Import Ban
It's not the ban that bothers me as someone who already owns an Ultra 2. But very much the idea of Apple working on a "software fix." Which could be anything from algorithm tweaks to disabling the sensor or disabling the display of the data in the Health App, which amounts to much the same thing.
Hopefully Apple doesn't go overboard with it if they decide to go that route.
look what Apple is advertising the AW can do: blood oxygen measurement - IF they would "disable" that feature they'd get sued from all angles, and they would lose, and they know that so it won't happen. Besides, the current issue of the import ban affect models that have not yet been sold, plus you can continue buying at retailers other than Apple.
So stop worrying about that "disable" thing.
Yep, thanks @Howard2k for sharing. I lost track on this topic so I was nice to see and yeah it’s looking more like a wear of tips or some hardware issues not FW.
Mea culpa