Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC in a statement shared on live television that Apple has no intention to license Masimo’s patents. While it seemed likely that was the case, the company hadn’t said as much publicly until now.
“We’re focused on appeal,” Cook’s statement said. “There’s lots of reasons to buy the watch even without the blood oxygen sensor.”
I’ve found the blood oxygen feature on the Apple Watch to be worthless. The error bars on its measurements must be massive, so I would get numerous measurements every day down in the 80s. Better, finger-tip-based hardware measurements taken at the same time were never below 96%. And I’m careful about wearing the Watch just the way Apple recommends. I ended up just turning the feature off entirely, because I don’t want junk data in my Health history. I actually agree with Masimo’s CEO, who said, “I really feel wholeheartedly that consumers are better off without it."