Any Apple Watch fan watching Monday’s WWDC keynote had to be disappointed. For one, Craig Federighi barely mentioned the platform, with the first mention of anything new coming nearly an hour into the event. But they might have missed something far worse: watchOS 27 drops support for 10 models.
You read that right: The upcoming watchOS 27 update, which includes Siri AI, a new tap gesture to select a widget in the Smart Stack, and design refinements all throughout the system, is only compatible with the following models, according to Apple.com:
- Apple Watch SE 3
- Apple Watch Series 9
- Apple Watch Series 10
- Apple Watch Series 11
- Apple Watch Ultra 2
- Apple Watch Ultra 3
According to 9to5Mac, the Apple Watch Series 9 will be supported by watchOS 27 despite being absent from the list on its website, so we’ve included it above. Still, watchOS 27 only models released in 2024 and 2025 and cuts off numerous models that were able to run watchOS 26, including:
- Apple Watch SE (2nd gen)
- Apple Watch Series 6
- Apple Watch Series 7
- Apple Watch Series 8
- Apple Watch Ultra
It’s not clear what the reasoning behind the move is, but it appears to be related to the S9 chip, which was introduced with the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2. All of the watches on this list have the S9 or S10 chip, which at the time delivered a new 4-core Neural Engine that can process machine learning tasks up to twice as fast as the S8.
Even so, there will be a lot of Apple Watch users upset that their devices are suddenly running outdated software. But don’t worry, Apple will be happy to sell them a new Apple Watch Series 12 in just a couple of months.
