Apple Inc. releases US military redesign of blood oxygen feature for limited Apple Watch users. This announcement follows a long, contentious intellectual property fight with the medical technology company Masimo. The new feature was unveiled on Thursday and marks a significant pivot for Apple after the International Trade Commission found that the company’s blood oxygen sensors had infringed on Masimo’s intellectual property.
While this legal battle has certainly taken its toll on Apple Watch sales, since they were put on hold during the entire dispute. Under CEO Tim Cook’s stewardship, Apple exposed the new pared-down approach to design at this year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). This event happened at the new Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California on June 9, 2025.
Masimo’s patent infringement lawsuit against Apple focused on the technology Apple Watch blood oxygen monitoring features were built on. The fight has brought extraordinary focus to the Apple technology at issue. It has further undermined the company’s stated goal of providing trustworthy health monitoring solutions.
That followed in February with Apple’s first major health study in five years—this time in collaboration with Brigham and Women’s Hospital. With this study, we sought to advance our understanding of health metrics. Although Apple has faced its own challenges with this initiative, this new move underscores Apple’s commitment to building the future of health tech.
So it’s been an important move on Apple’s part to help assure its users that their health features are completely above board. An official statement from the company noted, “Apple’s teams work tirelessly to create products and services that empower users with industry-leading health, wellness, and safety features that are grounded in science and have privacy at the core.”
Thanks to completely retooled blood oxygen hardware, this new feature should give users good accuracy and greater ease of use. Apple is introducing this feature in the US first. This is an important step in their pledge to improve health data tracking.
Apple continues to research the rapidly developing world of health technology. Professionals argue that the firm has many fascinating opportunities to deliver better experiences to users. T. Rowe Price’s Tony Wang remarked, “Apple still has a lot of ways to deliver a premium AI experience.”