Apple pauses sales of its newest watches

[The Morning After]( It's Tuesday, December 19, 2023. Some holiday misery for Apple: It will soon [pause sales of its latest Apple Watches]( in the US due to an International Trade Commission (ITC) ban. The company will suspend sales online this week and at Apple retail locations after December 24. Ho ho ho. It’s all down to a patent dispute over the wearables’ blood oxygen sensor. Cast your minds back: Medical tech company Masimo sued Apple in 2021 for alleged violations of light-based blood-oxygen monitoring patents. In October, the ITC upheld a judge’s ruling from earlier this year that the Apple Watch did violate Masimo’s patents. The ITC’s order blocks all Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 imports to the US after December 25. The case went to the White House for a 60-day Presidential Review Period. Although President Biden has one more week to decide whether to veto the ITC ruling, Apple has pre-emptively complied with the commission’s decision. President Biden[reportedly]( owns an Apple Watch – but also a load of[other watches]( too. — Mat Smith ​​You can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. [Subscribe right here!]( The biggest stories you might have missed [An electric car completed the world’s first-ever drive from the North to the South Pole]( [Adobe terminates its $20 billion Figma acquisition amid regulatory scrutiny]( [Beats headphones and earbuds are up to 49 percent off right now]( [2023 in review: The year the economics of tech caught up with reality]( [Here’s everything you should do to up your digital security before next year]( [NordVPN comes to the Apple TV]( [Our top gadgets of 2023]( The ones we bought. [[TMA] Engadget]( We test and review tons of gadgets every year, and (for some reason) we also buy a lot of things for ourselves. This year, those purchases included coffee-making upgrades, fancy keyboards and even pricey digital pianos. But there are plenty of other things we’ve bought and loved this year that have yet to make it on the site. Here, our staff looks back at the things that were worth the money. [Continue reading.]( [A new picture of Uranus looks like a sci-fi portal]( The Webb telescope’s NIRCam filters are to thank for this. [[TMA] NASA / ESA / CSA]( The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has a treat to celebrate the upcoming second anniversary of its launch: an image of the icy planet Uranus. The picture, resembling a glowing blue marble rippling in a black ocean, was funneled through the telescope’s infrared filters to capture wavelengths we wouldn’t see with the naked eye. Yeah, it looks like the CBS logo. [Continue reading.]( [US lawmakers call for DOJ probe into Apple’s blocking of Beeper’s iMessage app]( They asked an assistant attorney general to determine whether Apple violated antitrust laws. More socks for Apple’s legal department this Christmas. A bipartisan group of US senators and representatives have urged the Department of Justice to investigate whether Apple violated antitrust laws by attempting to block Beeper Mini’s access to iMessage. Senators have asked an assistant attorney general to look into Apple’s “potentially anticompetitive conduct.” Hopefully, senators will have learned lessons from the other times they’ve tried to grill technology companies without the technical expertise for their questions to make sense. [Continue reading.]( The Morning After is a daily newsletter from Engadget designed to help you fight off FOMO. Who knows what you'll miss if you don't [subscribe](. Craving even more? [Like us on Facebook]( or [follow us on Twitter](. Have a suggestion on how we can improve The Morning After? [Send us a note.]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Youtube]( [Instagram]( You are receiving this email because you opted in at [engadget.com](. Not interested anymore? [Unsubscribe from this newsletter.]( Copyright © 2023 Yahoo. All rights reserved.