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Apple Explains Why watchOS 27 Drops Support for So Many Models

Kriss_De_Valnor said:
Well Seiko Alpinist is not really a luxury watch. Its movement is cheap to service in my local and trusted 2nd hand watch dealer. £200 per service, every 5-6 years.

People who buy true luxury watches can afford to service them in ADs.
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I have a watch made by a luxury brand and I’m honestly shocked at how low the servicing costs are when I take it to the boutique. $50/service more than a third party, max.

Rolex would probably be different because they can do whatever they want.
 
As far as I can tell, my Series 7 will still be able to do everything it could do when I bought it nearly five years ago - a bit like my Omega Constellation which I inherited sixty years ago and still just tells the time, and date!
 
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They can say whatever they want. I'm no longer spending extra money on any of their " Pro" or "Ultra" models. I will probably trade or get whatever I can for my Ultra 1 and put it toward a new watch. At this point, I'm not even sure it will be an Apple Watch, which feels weird typing, because I have been an "Apple Fan Boy" for years. This is not what I want to do, but this is what I feel I'm being pushed to do. This and my previous MacBook Pro showed me how this new Apple operates.
 
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jpfitz said:
I think this it’s absolute bologna. 26 was garbage, and I was FIRCED to use it, or have a non-working watch. Now I have a 3 year old ultra watch which will probably get bricked the same way it did a month ago.

This company destroys my confidence in getting premium Apple products. I don’t care AT ALL if I get intelligence on my watch. I want CONTINUOUS SUPPORT FOR A PRODUCT THAT IS ONLY 3 YEARS OLD.

What’s wrong with you guys? How can this actually be justified? I have told many people to get Apple Watches to get +10 years of support. Now you are just making me look like an idiot, and bricking a product that’s 3 years old (bought new too).
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You are continuing to get support. Nobody is abandoning you. 26 will continue to get updates. If your watch continues to function with 26, exactly what are you missing out on?
 
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IIGS User said:
I can’t help but feel a little ripped off and a little foolish.

I bought an Ultra 1 about a year after they came out thinking since I was shelling out for Apple’s top of the line product it would receive regular updates for at least 5 or 6 years.

I get it. Technology marches on and all that, but Apple COULD just release a version of the watch OS that doesn’t include all the new AI stuff. They’ve done it with the phones and in my experience people replace their phones more often than they replace a watch.

So as an Ultra 1 owner this seems inversely proportional to how updates are handled on the phone side.

In the end, I feel like I got taken. People will forget a crappy product every now and again, and obviously they will put up with crappy software.

But you gotta know I’m thinking long and hard before I shell out $800 for an Apple Watch again when the one I have was hung out to dry so quickly. And when I think of the product, it doesn’t make me feel good about it. It makes me feel used. Like a chump.

I’m not quick to blow $800 so I can feel like a chump again in 4 years. I’m not saying I won’t buy an Apple Watch again, but I sure won’t be encouraging others to buy one anytime soon and it’ll be a tough sell on the next one.

Poorly played, Apple. Poorly played.
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Yep. I'm a a watch guy and the Apple Watch was the first time I actually considered a wearable; really liked the tech in it, know Apple is the envy of the industry for its long term support of products (from being a decades-long user)... and then this.

I have no interest in the AI stuff but Apple blowing off updates like this is ridiculous. iPhone 11 is getting iOS 27 (which anyway is mostly a bug fix of the horrific iOS 26) so why is our 2022 product (top of the line no less) getting blown off?
 
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Oh bogus, they said its because of AI yet the AI runs on an iPhone…
This aint helping my case making me even happier with my Garmin
 
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Shalev Lazarof said:
arm64_32 architecture phase ended.
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This is unlikely to be the limitation. The core difference between arm64_32 and arm64 lies in pointer size. Both use the same 64-bit execution state and registers, but arm64_32 strips pointer sizes down to 32 bits to save memory. arm64_32 has max 4 GB RAM per app and arm64 has in the hundreds of gigabytes.

They'd need that memory if Apple were putting an Large Language Model (LLM) directly on the watch... but here's the thing, Apple is not putting a fully standalone, on-device LLM inside the Apple Watch for watchOS 27.
 
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It’s always the same with these erratic gaslight-extraordinaire talking heads… I still don’t know why they didn’t include the other models.

A simple similar example: “hey Nvidia, why I can’t turn on raytracing on my GTX 1080?”
Nvidia would reply: “well, it turns out that for raytracing you need GPU raytracing hardware, that’s on ‘RTX models 2060 and newer’”.

The end, not that “well, we want the player to have the best experience when they are sitting in the toilette, we want them to feel like one together” non-sense
 
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k1121j said:
This is interesting after the class action about batteries they should absolutely let you pay to get a new battery no matter the percentage. I’d look closer in to this.
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Why would a company not let you pay to replace your battery?
 
Xade said:
Why would a company not let you pay to replace your battery?
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Apple, in the past, has required the battery to be under 80% health to replace the battery. Then they made it so that if you have AppleCare+ you can only replace the battery under 80% health - but if you wanted to pay out of pocket, they'd sometimes do it if it was above 80% health.

Why? Because there is a high risk for failure. The device can be broken, damaged, seals compromised. For devices like the Apple Watch - it is impossible to replace the battery so it is swapped out with a refurbished unit.
 
thistleknife said:
For the umpteenth time, devices that aren't updated are not BRICKED. Stop being sloppy with your language. No one is reaching out and destroying your watch.
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Are we sure they aren't functionally doing that though?

Once your iPhone is on iOS27, will it work with an AW on WatchOS26?

(asking -- I don't know, but that's my general understanding of it)
 
turbineseaplane said:
Are we sure they aren't functionally doing that though?

Once your iPhone is on iOS27, will it work with an AW on WatchOS26?

(asking -- I don't know, but that's my general understanding of it)
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Yeah, I have several relatives using older Apple Watches working just fine with iOS 26. Had a relative up till last year using my old Apple Watch Series 3. Did everything just fine.

A forum user reported they got an Apple Watch Series 2 to pair and work with iOS 26.

So, the watch not being bricked and will work just like it did when it was purchased for a long long time.

Apple could have done a lot better job explaining this and had the opportunity to make users happy by providing a Siri AI-Less Watch OS 27 to all the devices that got Watch OS 26 - but my guess is the executive bean counters shut that down.

That said, several other watch generations only got 3 OS updates and they work just fine and will for a long long time.
 
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BigMcGuire said:
Yeah, I have several relatives using older Apple Watches working just fine with iOS 26. Had a relative up till last year using my old Apple Watch Series 3. Did everything just fine.

A forum user reported they got an Apple Watch Series 2 to pair and work with iOS 26.

So, the watch not being bricked and will work just like it did when it was purchased for a long long time.

Apple could have done a lot better job explaining this and had the opportunity to make users happy by providing a Siri AI-Less Watch OS 27 to all the devices that got Watch OS 26 - but my guess is the executive bean counters shut that down.

That said, several other watch generations only got 3 OS updates and they work just fine and will for a long long time.
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I appreciate the clarity to better understand all this. 🤙
 
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BigMcGuire said:
Apple, in the past, has required the battery to be under 80% health to replace the battery. Then they made it so that if you have AppleCare+ you can only replace the battery under 80% health - but if you wanted to pay out of pocket, they'd sometimes do it if it was above 80% health.

Why? Because there is a high risk for failure. The device can be broken, damaged, seals compromised. For devices like the Apple Watch - it is impossible to replace the battery so it is swapped out with a refurbished unit.
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Thank you!
 
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I care about telling the time, weather, sleep tracking, workout tracking, some basic notications... as long as those things still work when I lose iOS 27 I'm fine with losing Siri. I've never used Siri to this day except to start a timer. The only thing I ask for is my watch doesn't run like **** every time there's any update.
 
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