Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 sales in the US this week Apple Watch

https://9to5mac.com/2023/12/18/apple-halting-apple-watch-series-9-and-apple-watch-ultra-2-sales/

3.2k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

251

u/Laconic9x Dec 18 '23

So, will they gimp the blood oxygen feature via future software update?

242

u/Blindemboss Dec 18 '23

I doubt it. If they lose, they'll simply work out a financial deal with the patent holders.

39

u/bazookatroopa Dec 18 '23

yeah them being unable to sell is a bargaining chip and it costs them money daily until a deal is made lol

5

u/TingGreaterThanOC Dec 18 '23

“Simply”

22

u/dossier762 Dec 18 '23

They have $136 billion in cash reserve. While details are complicated, it is a simple solution: pay them

6

u/High-bar Dec 19 '23

Buy them

0

u/overkil6 Dec 18 '23

Then why not just do that with the current watches? Pay the licensing fee for one generation.

1

u/The_Woman_of_Gont Dec 18 '23

Because they haven’t exhausted all other options yet. There’s theoretically still a chance that Biden tosses them a veto, though at this point it seems unlikely likely, and an appeal after that.

1

u/rugbyj Dec 19 '23

I guess it's still winnable, so their decision goes from:

Hold out, win, get 100% of everything before/after

Cut a deal, get ?% of everything past/present/future

Whilst #1 is an option it's their bully chip to try and wring a deal which evidently hasn't come to the table.

Interesting to see where this goes!

1

u/Bacchus1976 Dec 19 '23

I’m not so sure. Apple really hates paying licensing fees. And the patent holder has no incentive to quote a friendly price after this.

1

u/WalrusNikammaChod Dec 19 '23

Lol as if masimo would agree.

1

u/Whyisthereasnake Dec 19 '23

They should sooner buy the company. They only have a $6B market cap, Apple has tons in its war chest and wants to expand into healthcare more anyway.

29

u/JoshuaTheFox Dec 18 '23

No, as it states in the article, units sold will be unaffected and continue to operate as they have been

37

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '23

Shit barely works anyway.

2

u/trireme32 Dec 19 '23

Works fine on my Ultra 2

1

u/subdep Dec 19 '23

Works fine on mine.

1

u/bralma6 Dec 18 '23

The issue with that is Apple can't force an update to happen. People like me don't have automatic updates enabled so I would have that feature on mine while others didn't. Would be funny if it created a sort of, black market of watches with this feature like when Flappy Bird got removed from the app store. My old iPhone 4 still has the game on it lol.

1

u/Donghoon Dec 18 '23

its a sales ban