watchOS 27 Announced
Apple today unveiled watchOS 27, featuring a redesigned dynamic app grid, new gesture controls, and a raft of usability and battery improvements.
The new dynamic app grid surfaces and rearranges five apps based on context and usage. Users can simply tap the bottom center icon to go to the rest of their apps.
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Users can now create custom passes for any membership or card that uses a QR code or barcode, such as a library card, using their iPhone and access it directly from the Apple Watch’s Wallet app or pin it to the Smart Stack.
Hartley Charlton (Marcus Mendes):
Apple today confirmed that watchOS 27 will not support the Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch Ultra (first generation), or Apple Watch SE (second generation), effectively drawing a line at devices equipped with the S9 or S10 chip.
Apple had initially announced that Series 9 would be dropped, too.
Here are new features coming in watchOS 27 for Apple Watch
watchOS 27 contains a series of enhancements to fitness and sleep tracking, including new Workout Buddy insights, improved indoor run tracking, and more.
Apple yesterday announced a redesigned Find My app in watchOS 27 that brings all tracking functionality into a single, map-centric interface.
Previously split across separate Find Devices, Find People, and Find Items apps, the new app now consolidates everything into one unified view.
See also:
Previously:
Update (2026-06-11): Meek Geek:
Seeing a lot of lamenting for the Series 7/8 and Ultra 1 losing support for watchOS 27. But those models were EOL’d in the subsequent year.
It’s worse for SE 2 owners who purchased theirs just last year before the SE 3 came out in September. Totally shafted. Oof.
In addition to watchOS 27 dropping support for a lot of pretty recent Apple Watches, the minimum target for builds moved up to watchOS 9. So, you can no longer support Series 3 watches that are stuck on watchOS 8.
Update (2026-06-18): Steve Troughton-Smith:
We’re nearly 12 years on from the introduction of Apple Watch, and you still can’t make your own watch faces for it.
Update (2026-06-19): Hartley Charlton:
Speaking to TechRadar, Cait Dooley, Apple Watch and Health product marketing manager, said performance requirements were behind the cutoff:
With every software release across every single one of our platforms, we always want to ensure that you have the best experience, so we make power and performance a priority. The great new features in watchOS, including the capabilities of Siri AI and the new tap gesture, work best with the processing power that is in Apple Watch Series 9 and later, Ultra 2 and later, and SE 3.
But, presumably, if you’re in the EU and don’t have access to Siri AI you still won’t be able to run watchOS 27.
Previously:
Update (2026-06-26): Dennis Oberhoff:
Especially the new AppleTV prices are ufff. With tvOS 2.7 deprecating the 2015 and 2017 AppleTV, it seems the platform will fragment pretty hard, since I don’t see people upgrading.
Previously:
3 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
I love my Ultra. It's been a solid performer on countless hikes, up dozens of mountains, way surpassing the Series 5 I had before it, my first Apple Watch. The sapphire display's still flawless, despite a lot of rough treatment and clumsiness!
Yet here I am remembering why I was reluctant to grab the Ultra as soon as it came out: they shortchanged the processor, didn’t they? It was just a rebadged 2-year old SIP. I always knew it would come back to bite me, even in 2022!
Ah well. Asking Gemini to recap the rumours, supposedly the Ultra 4 is coming in the autumn and will be the first visual refresh to the Ultra line, while still being compatible with my beloved titanium Milanese loop. It'll cost me, but that’s Apple.
No cheating on the silicon again this time!
This will be my last Apple watch. My Ultra 1 is a 4 year old premium product. Their treatment of premium buyers is one hell of a message to send, but the message is received. The Pebble Round 2 is shipping…
