Have One of These 16 Apple Devices? Software Support Ends This Fall

Apple will end software support for 16 devices this fall across four product lines, with the Apple Watch seeing the most sweeping cull in the product's history. The full extent of this year's software drops became clear with the announcements of mac OS 27 Golden Gate, i Pad OS 27, tv OS 27, and watch OS 27 at WWDC this week. The one bright spot is that i OS 27 features identical device support to i OS 26, with no i Phone models removed from the compatibility list, and the same goes for the Home Pod. The Apple Watch sees the sharpest cuts. watchOS 27 drops the Series 6, Series 7, Series 8, Apple Watch Ultra (first generation), and Apple Watch SE (second generation) in a single wave, requiring an S9 or S10 chip. watchOS 26 had supported the same lineup as watchOS 11 before it, including the Series 6 and later, the SE (2nd generation) and later, and all Apple Watch Ultra models. Wiping out three launch generations at once is the biggest loss of latest-generation support for Apple Watch to date. The iPad lineup also sees an unusually aggressive set of cuts. iPadOS 27 raises the floor to the A14 Bionic chip or the M1 chip, dropping five models that still run iPadOS 26: The iPad Air (3rd generation), the iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation), the ‌iPad Pro‌ 11-inch (1st generation), the ‌iPad‌ (8th generation), and the iPad mini (5th generation). By comparison, ‌iPadOS 26‌ cut only a single device from the iPadOS 18 list (the 7th generation ‌iPad‌). macOS Golden Gate brings the era of Intel Macs to a close. The four remaining Intel machines supported by macOS Tahoe don't make the cut this year: The MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019), ‌MacBook Pro‌ (13-inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports), iMac (2020), and Mac Pro (2019). Apple said last year that ‌macOS Tahoe‌ would be the final release for pre-Apple silicon Macs, and macOS 27 makes that official. Apple TV sees two models dropped with tvOS 27: The ‌Apple TV‌ HD from 201