Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
watchOS 27 Improves Apple Watch Performance in Seven Ways
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Its pretty ironic they're touting performance improvements when they've killed off support for most of the OS26 devices.
baconcat_8964
macrumors 6502
Improved performance but not for older hardwares.
With what I thought was a fairly new ultra 1 I question the feasibility of keeping Apple Watch in my regular product replacement rotation. I cannot even use it as a remote playing my music from a MacBook.
Séamus Boyle
macrumors regular
abowlby
macrumors 6502a
So this is an efficiency build that can't run on Watch Ultra OG. Sure, Jan. TBF, I played myself by breaking the cardinal rule of buying anything other than a base model AW. Still, I'm moving to Coros after being on AW since Series 0.
abowlby
macrumors 6502a
Absolutely. I'm shifting to Coros. Probably Pace Pro $299, although the Nomad looks nice as well.
rdinterman
macrumors 6502
davem20
macrumors newbie
Remember when we used to be able to press a button and get the last five used apps? Why did they take that away? Back to the future I guess.
Not a bad idea. I usually prefer my traditional analog watches to my Apple Watch. I keep Siri, AI and even health tracking turned off on that just like my other Apple devices. I have it mainly so I can get phone calls when I’m not carrying my iPhone.
Nonstickron
macrumors newbie
Wow, my 1st gen Ultrawatch is already obsolete?
It is really interesting that this WatchOS focuses on performance improvements, yet excludes MANY older watches. Very different approach than iOS where they continue to support quite old phones.
It seems with no real new features on WatchOS, why are the other watches excluded from receiving simple performance improvements?
It seems with no real new features on WatchOS, why are the other watches excluded from receiving simple performance improvements?
Howard2k
macrumors 604
It doesn’t have the neural cores. Are you saying that Apple shouldn’t develop the watches or software?
I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I'd imagine people don't upgrade their Apple Watch often and this seems like a way to force people into upgrading.
Logically I cannot think of any other reason to drop support for less than 3 year old watch models, especially when the entire update is focused around improved performance.
Very un-Apple like and unfortunate.
So far on my Series 9 it's working out well. It's counting more steps than before and there's less lag while doing so. Dynamic grid is a huge improvement. I waited a couple extra years with my crusty S4 for the S9 because that has a new SIP, which paid off in spades for watchOS 27.
MrMacintoshIII
macrumors 6502a
Squidiey
macrumors regular
Apple: wE cAre ABouT thE enViRoMenT!
Also Apple: Your Apple Watch Ultra 1 you bought 3.5 years ago ended software support; in other words, becoming e-waste
Squidiey
macrumors regular
Yeah I'm switching to a Casio watch or any traditional watch in general.
it'll last for at least 10 years or even more
Squidiey
macrumors regular
At least they should make a lite/nerfed version of WatchOS 27 if that's their execuse
All good stuff - if you have a watch that will support it. Improved battery efficiency will be particularly welcome but I wonder how much improvement they can squeeze out of the software. An extra 5% feels close to noise to me but if they can get to an extra 10% or more then that becomes interesting.
I do hope we'll be able to re-map (i.e. replace) that Siri icon in the centre of the new app grid with another app icon. I always invoke Siri via a long-press on the crown so for me having a Siri icon centre stage on that grid invoked (I assume) via a single press on the crown is a complete waste of space when had, I wanted to activate Siri, I would have just kept my finger on the crown for a fraction of a second longer.
I do hope we'll be able to re-map (i.e. replace) that Siri icon in the centre of the new app grid with another app icon. I always invoke Siri via a long-press on the crown so for me having a Siri icon centre stage on that grid invoked (I assume) via a single press on the crown is a complete waste of space when had, I wanted to activate Siri, I would have just kept my finger on the crown for a fraction of a second longer.
I have an Ultra 2, but I still don’t like that I’m one generation away from being unsupported. It feels way too soon for Apple to be deprecating some of these Apple Watches. The ancient iPhone 11 is still supported by the next version of iOS, it seems weird that the support time frame on Apple Watch is so different.
Howard2k
macrumors 604
We don’t know that WatchOS28 will drop Ultra 2. Apple hasn’t announced that yet.
driekraaien
macrumors member
For core watch updates yes, but making fairly recent models obsolete because of some future AI workloads a watch cannot support is something else. Who needs AI on their watch anyway? If there’s anything to process just hand it off to the phone.
Last edited:
I wasn’t very clear…what I meant is that it’s a bad feeling that my expensive Ultra 2 is the oldest generation that is still being supported and it will be a victim to the next time Apple drops support for models. Who knows what version that will be, but it feels way too soon for an Apple product.