Apple Watch owners hoping to upgrade to watchOS 27 could be in for disappointment.
Apple released watchOS 27 on September 14, bringing Siri AI, a new tap gesture for selecting widgets in the Smart Stack, a dynamic app grid and design refinements throughout the system. But a significant number of Apple Watches that could run watchOS 26 have been left behind.
watchOS 27 drops support for the Apple Watch SE 2, Series 6, Series 7, Series 8 and the original Apple Watch Ultra. That means the oldest supported models are now the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2, both released in 2023.
The limited support perhaps shouldn’t come as a complete surprise. During the WWDC keynote in June, Craig Federighi barely mentioned watchOS, with the first significant Apple Watch announcement arriving nearly an hour into the presentation.
According to Apple, watchOS 27 is compatible with the following models:
- Apple Watch SE 3
- Apple Watch Series 9
- Apple Watch Series 10
- Apple Watch Series 11
- Apple Watch Series 12
- Apple Watch Ultra 2
- Apple Watch Ultra 3
- Apple Watch Ultra 4
Initially, the Apple Watch Series 9 was absent from the compatibility list on Apple’s website, but we were later able to confirm that it is supported by watchOS 27.
The new cutoff leaves behind several watches that were supported by watchOS 26, including:
- Apple Watch SE (2nd generation)
- Apple Watch Series 6
- Apple Watch Series 7
- Apple Watch Series 8
- Apple Watch Ultra
It’s not clear why Apple has made such a sharp cut, but the dividing line broadly corresponds with the S9 generation, introduced with the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2. The S9 brought a new 4-core Neural Engine capable of processing machine-learning tasks up to twice as fast as the S8, giving Apple considerably more headroom for features such as Siri AI.
The Apple Watch SE 3 is the exception to that simple S9 cutoff, however, so processor requirements may not be the whole story.
Either way, plenty of Apple Watch owners will be disappointed to find that relatively recent devices can’t install Apple’s latest software. And, naturally, Apple will be happy to sell them a new Apple Watch Series 12.
