Blood Oxygen returns to Apple Watch, iOS 26 beta 6, Apple tabletop robots
9to5Mac Happy Hour
9to5Mac
4.4 • 924 Ratings
🗓️ 14 August 2025
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Benjamin and Chance react to the surprise announcement that the Apple Watch Blood Oxygen feature is coming back for US users, via a phone relay workaround. Also, Apple released the latest beta of iOS 26, featuring some fun new animations and even more Liquid Glass refinements. Plus, there’s more speculation about the low-cost MacBook and more details about Apple’s future ventures into home robotics.
And in Happy Hour Plus, we catch up on some recent TV shows and movies we enjoyed this summer. Subscribe at 9to5mac.com/join.
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Hosts
Chance Miller
- @chancemiller.me on Bluesky
- @chancehmiller@mastodon.social
- @ChanceHMiller on Instagram
- @ChanceHMiller on Threads
Benjamin Mayo
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Links
- Apple launching ‘redesigned Blood Oxygen feature’ on Apple Watch in the U.S. today
- Everything new in iOS 26 beta 6
- iOS 26 beta 6 makes iPhone apps launch so much faster
- iOS 26 beta 6 adds six brand new iPhone ringtones, listen here
- Liquid Glass gets more changes in iOS 26 beta 6, here’s what’s new
- The new Preview app has a fun interactive Liquid Glass easter egg
- iOS 26 beta hints at upcoming AirPods live translation gesture
- Faster animations on iOS 26 makes even older iPhones feel like new
- The redundant iTunes Movies and TV Shows apps can now be hidden from the Apple TV Home Screen
- A new Apple TV 4K is coming soon: will it support Apple Intelligence?
- Low-cost MacBook production starting soon
- Siri could get Finder-inspired new visual appearance next year, per report
- Report: Apple planning ecosystem of home security devices to compete with Ring and Nest
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's been a busy morning, Mayo, a surprisingly busy morning, I think. |
| 0:04.5 | Definitely a surprise. |
| 0:05.8 | Definitely a surprise. |
| 0:06.7 | So Apple has announced that later today, so later on Thursday as we're recording this, |
| 0:11.9 | it will release a software update for iPhone and Apple Watch that brings a redesigned |
| 0:17.0 | blood oxygen feature for Apple Watch users in the United States. |
| 0:21.9 | We're 20 months basically since Apple stopped selling the blood oxygen feature in the U.S. |
| 0:28.7 | on the Apple Watch. |
| 0:29.5 | That's the Series 9, the Series 10, and the Ultra 2. |
| 0:32.7 | I don't think we need to get into the details because we've talked about it so much, |
| 0:35.5 | but it's the patent battle with Massimo, the health technology company, and the International Trade Commission ruled that Apple |
| 0:41.6 | infringed on a Mossimo patent, blocked it from selling Blood Oxygen Censor Apple Watches in the |
| 0:47.3 | US, and that's where we've been until today. Yeah, and Apple sells the same hardware as they |
| 0:52.7 | sell in every other part of the world, but the feature is disabled. |
| 0:56.7 | So the hardware that you buy right now, if you buy an Apple, it's 10 in the US, has a blood oxygen sensor inside it. |
| 1:03.3 | It's just disabled. |
| 1:04.5 | And it's interesting because Apple had never actually said that and still hasn't actually said that. |
| 1:10.7 | But that's always been what we've |
| 1:12.6 | basically known and speculated, but with today's announcement that now we know for sure that, |
| 1:17.1 | yes, the sensor is there. The difference in how Apple is skirting around the ITC ruling with this |
| 1:22.6 | new redesigned blood oxygen feature is that the measurements are happening on the watch, |
| 1:27.2 | but all of the calculations are happening on the watch, but all of the |
... |
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