The original Apple Watch won't get watchOS 5's fancy new features

Heads-up if you own an original Apple Watch: your wristwear is officially obsolete. Apple has confirmed that watchOS 5 will drop support for the first-generation Watch and will require at least a Series 1 timepiece. Like it or not, you'll have to upgrade to new hardware if you want automatic workouts or Walkie Talkie chats. It's a relatively short support lifespan for an Apple device (iOS hardware tends to receive support around for four to five years), but it's not entirely surprising. If anything, Apple is repeating history.

If you'll remember, the original iPhone also had a relatively short software lifespan. Its last update arrived in February 2010, or less than three years after the device hit the market. And like that iPhone, the initial Apple Watch just wasn't well-equipped for the future with a pokey processor and a dearth of hardware features. This may be less about pushing users to new hardware as it is being realistic -- recent versions of watchOS were already struggling a bit on the first-run model, and the situation wasn't going to get better with time.

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Source: Apple (1), (2)



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