I think you are talking at cross-purposes.
The SpO2 feature is disabled in software for all Apple Watch 9 and Ultra 2s sold after the latest sales ban came into effect. They all have different serial numbers to differentiate them from models sold before the sales ban. Apple Watches sold before the latest sales ban will not have the SpO2 sensor disabled in software.
The hardware has not been changed in any way from what people can tell; the feature is simply disabled in software, which satisfied the ITC.
Exactly. Agree with everything you are saying here. The point I was bringing up was that it was discovered that Apple was using a change in the code to WatchOS to differentiate between pre-ban and post-ban Series 9s and Ultra 2s, and that all it will be taking to reenable the the sensor is to take out the IF or CASE statement that looks for the identifier and the statement that disables the sensor.
The issue I was bringing up was that this had the potential to affect previous models as well, because if a simple IF or CASE statement and looking for the identifier could disable it for one model, it could do the same for other models: legal requirements, or otherwise (notwithstanding the consequences of doing such a thing). That is what made checking the release of WatchOS 10.3 important.
What I'm wondering now is if those Series 9s and Ultra 2s sold post-ban already had 10.3 on them, or a newer build of 10.2, because there wouldn't have been a way to tell if they actually did have the sensor disabled without looking at the OS version on them.
Anyone saying that watches sold prior to the latest sales ban will have the SpO2 functionality disabled in software are spreading FUD.
No-one was saying that the watches sold prior to the latest ban had that functionality disabled. That is
NOT what is being addressed here.
Those who buy a watch after the sales ban came into effect know that the watch no longer has SpO2 monitoring as that feature has been removed from the feature list. Anyone who bought an Apple Watch prior to the latest sales ban will continue to enjoy SpO2 monitoring.
Agreed. But what we didn't know until this past weekend was
HOW that feature was going to be removed. Now that we know it is software, we now know the potential of what Apple could do to enable or disable a feature on any given watch:
Code:
if (identifier = xx) {
disable feature();
} else {
enable feature();
}
That could be done with ANY identifier. That isn't FUD, either; just the observation based on what was reported about how the O2 sensor feature was disabled in WatchOS.
BL.
