Edit: I misread “purchase” as “purchased”, which is wrong.

You’re removing the important part. Here’s the full sentence, with emphasis:

> According to the tech giant, customers who purchase the watches in the U.S. will still be able to see Apple's Blood Oxygen app on their devices, but when tapped, users will get a message saying the feature is no longer available.

In other words, you saw the icon for the app but it didn’t work. The feature had been removed even for those who had already paid for it.

> the ability to measure blood oxygen levels will no longer be available on newly purchased Apple Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 models

It says that was on new watches, it doesn't say they retroactively removed the feature from old watches.

I stand corrected. Despite reading the sentence multiple times, my brain autocorrected “purchase” to “purchased”. My memory was that they had retroactively removed the feature, but on further reading it looks like I’m misremembering.