Apple Watch Drops Five Models in watchOS 27, Biggest Cut in Years
What You Need to Know
- Apple dropping support for 16 devices across four product lines with new fall operating systems.
- WatchOS 27 cuts five Apple Watch models, requiring minimum S9 or S10 chip.
- IPadOS 27 requires A14 Bionic or M1 chip, ending support for five iPad models.
- MacOS 27 ends Intel Mac support, completing Apple’s transition to custom silicon chips.
Sixteen devices across four product lines will lose software update eligibility when Apple ships its new operating systems this fall, with phones the only category escaping cuts entirely. The iOS 27 compatibility list is unchanged from iOS 26, giving iPhone owners a reprieve that owners of older watches, tablets, Macs, and media players do not get.
The watch losses are the sharpest in recent memory. watchOS 27 drops five models at once, requiring at minimum an S9 or S10 chip. That means the Apple Watch Series 6 through Series 8, the first Apple Watch Ultra, and the second-generation Apple Watch SE are all out, spanning releases from 2020 to 2022.
iPadOS 27 is nearly as aggressive. The update requires an A14 Bionic or M1 chip, cutting off five iPads including the 2018 iPad Pro models, the 2019 iPad Air and iPad mini, and the 2020 eighth-generation iPad. Buyers of those 2018 Pro models got roughly seven years of software support, which is reasonable by Apple’s historical standards, though the 2020 iPad mini and iPad land closer to five.
Intel Macs and Apple TV
The Intel Mac era is now officially closed. macOS 27 Golden Gate ends support for the 2019 Mac Pro, 2019 and 2020 MacBook Pro models, and the 2020 iMac, completing a transition that began when Apple announced its shift to custom silicon in 2020. Anyone who bought a 2020 iMac new is looking at a support window of around five years.
Two Apple TV models also lose access to tvOS updates: the Apple TV HD from 2015 and the first-generation Apple TV 4K from 2017. Only newer 4K hardware moves forward.
The cut does not mean immediate obsolescence. Apple typically continues security patches for the prior OS generation for at least a year after a new release ships, so affected devices remain usable and reasonably safe for now.
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