Ever wonder what’s going on with your blood? C’mon, yes, you have. Remember Ms. Frizzle? Don’t tell me she and her magic school bus didn’t spark at least some kind of interest in what’s going on inside your body.

Like maybe the oxygen content of your blood? You wouldn’t know it if you’ve been using an Apple Watch for the last 18 months in the US, as they’ve done without their blood oxygen monitoring feature for that entire time, thanks to a semi-convoluted assertion of a patent infringement.

As of a software update today, though, blood oxygen monitoring is returning to the Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Ultra 2 models in the US through a software update.

the telltale heart (monitoring smart watch)

Back at the tail end of 2023, Apple had to put a halt to selling its Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 in the US after the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled that Apple had violated the patent rights of Masimo, an American health tech company.

When Apple resumed the sale of the Series 9 and Ultra 2 in early 2024, it did so without enabling the blood oxygen monitoring at the core of Masimo’s patent and thus, the ITC’s ruling.

The Apple Watch Series 10, likewise, hit the American market on its release day in September 2024 without the blood oxygen monitoring feature enabled, too. Until today, at least.

Now that I think about all this The Magic School Bus business, the books came out in 1986, and smart watches and fitness trackers only became popular in the 2010s, when all those kids who grew up reading it and watching the TV show were old enough to make expensive purchases.

Could we say The Magic School Bus directly caused the invention of such devices?? Our lawyers and Apple and common sense would almost certainly say not, but who are we to let common sense come between us and a mere correlation?