Apple only has a few days to save the latest Apple Watch in the United States.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is hard at work on a software update that could rescue the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 from an impending retail ban in the U.S., which is set to start on Dec. 21.
The ban, ordered by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), is the result of alleged patent infringement regarding the Apple Watch’s blood-oxygen tracking features. The accusation of infringement was made by the medical tech company Masimo.
A software fix may not be enough
There are a couple of tricky angles to this whole thing. First, the ban on Apple Watch sales isn’t total, per TechRadar. Third-party retailers like Walmart can keep selling Apple Watches, but Apple can’t sell them directly if the ban goes into place. Second, the software update is supposed to alter how the watch measures and presents blood-oxygen tracking to the user, but Masimo’s accusation is more related to hardware infringement. A patch may not be enough to please Masimo.
No matter how this turns out, if you want an Apple Watch Series 9 or Ultra 2, you only have a couple days to order it from Apple directly. Get to it.
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A possible case of patent infringement has Apple on the brink of not being able to sell its own smartwatch in the U.S.
