watchOS 27 Leaves Recent Apple Watches Stuck in the Past
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Apple had surprisingly little to say about the Apple Watch during yesterday’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) keynote, since it followed a new format that focused more on tentpole platform features like the new Siri AI and child safety features than delving down into the nitty gritty of each individual software update.
Nevertheless, watchOS 27 is still coming alongside iOS 27 and the rest of Apple’s big updates. However, we also have some bad news for anyone with an older Apple Watch model: the company is drawing the line more harshly this year in supporting older models.
After the event, Apple’s watchOS preview page somewhat shockingly indicated that watchOS 27 would require an Apple Watch Series 10 or newer — a cutoff point that seems very odd considering that the Series 9 and Series 10 essentially share the same chip. Plus, major new features that Apple later added in watchOS with the release of the Series 10 and Series 11 were also available on the Series 9.
Fortunately, Apple subsequently confirmed that this was an error and updated the page to include the Apple Watch Series 9. However, that’s still a much higher bar for a watchOS update than we’ve seen in a while.
To put this in perspective, watchOS 26 could be installed on older models all the way back to the Apple Watch Series 6, released in 2020, offering the five years of software updates typical to Apple’s other devices. This year, watchOS 27 will draw the line at an almost unprecedented three years of major updates — giving the 2022 Apple Watch Series 8 the shortest support lifecycle since the original Apple Watch (the so-called “Series 0”) was dropped from watchOS 5 in September 2018 — only 3.5 years after its April 2015 release. However, while that model was cutoff sooner on the calendar, the more rapid-fire watchOS release cycle of that era meant it still received three updates, so this could technically be called a tie.
What’s even more jarring is that this also applies to the original Apple Watch Ultra since that was released the same year as the Series 8 and packs the same S8 chip. While those who picked up the Ultra 2 are perfectly safe, early adopters who shelled out premium cash for the first-generation rugged wearable in late 2022 are hitting a software dead-end much sooner than expected — although it pales in comparison to the folks who purchased a $10,000 Apple Watch Edition in 2015 with its 2.5-year update cycle.
What’s New in watchOS 27
This new limit raises the obvious question as to what’s so special about watchOS 27 that it can’t run on a four-year-old Apple Watch.
While it’s hard to know for sure, the most obvious answer seems like it’s the addition of Siri AI. One of the tentpole features of the Apple Watch Series 9 when it was released three years ago was the four-core Neural Engine in its S9 chip, which powered simple on-device Siri requests for the first time. This allowed Apple to let users query and update health information by voice, while also making Siri a bit faster.
One of the few places Apple mentioned the Apple Watch during the WWDC keynote was in the context of Siri AI, and it stands to reason that Apple will leverage this Neural Engine to power on-device requests.
We’re also tailoring Siri AI for watchOS, so you can ask questions and take action right on your wrist. And you can also tap into the Siri app using the new app grid on Apple Watch.
Mike Rockwell, Apple’s VP of Siri Engineering
Still, Apple could presumably limit this to the Series 9 and later models, much like it does with the iPhone, so it’s hard to imagine that being a dealbreaker. After all, iOS 27 can still be installed on the 2019 iPhone 11, but Siri AI and other Apple Intelligence features will still be limited to the iPhone 15 Pro and later models — and some will even require an iPhone 17 Pro.
Other new features in watchOS 27 seem far less demanding by comparison. The AI-powered Workout Buddy will offer up new insights from your fitness data while you’re in a workout, the Cycle Tracking app gains perimenopause and menopause support, and a dynamic app grid lets you open apps much faster by placing your six or seven most popular and recently used apps in an easily-tappable circle (you’ll get six centered around the Siri app if Siri AI is enabled; otherwise a seventh appears in the center).
None of these are things that should require the power of the S9, at least not directly. When Apple introduced Workout Buddy last year, it was available on any watchOS 26-supported Apple Watch as long as it was paired with an Apple Intelligence-capable iPhone. Plus, while it’s possible that the new Cycle Tracking features may require the Neural Engine for on-device processing, the same was true of Apple’s new sleep apnea and hypertension notification features, which were limited to the Apple Watch Series 9 or later.
Apple does have to draw the line somewhere, and perhaps watchOS 27 was simply getting too complicated to run satisfactorily on older S-series chips. Still, we can’t blame folks who bought an Apple Watch Series 8 or Apple Watch Ultra in 2023 for feeling disenfranchised by being left behind on watchOS 26.
