Some older Apple iPads, Watches and Macs are not getting the latest OS versions
Yesterday, Apple announced the next major versions of its various operating systems – phone, tablet, watch and computer. However, support for some older devices was discontinued. We will cover the iPhone situation in a separate post, here is what is happening with the other Apple devices.
Starting with tablets, iPadOS 18 is coming to most slates that are still supported. There are a couple of exceptions, though. The vanilla iPad from 2018 (aka 6th gen) is discontinued and only 2019 (7th gen) and newer models are getting the update. The 12.9” iPad Pro from 2017 (2nd gen) also gets dropped, the oldest large Pro that remains current is the one from 2018 (3rd gen).
The 10.5” iPad Pro from 2017 is also discontinued, this is listed as “1st gen” (this ignores the original iPad Pro 9.7 from 2016). The 11” Pro model from 2018 is also listed as “1st gen”, which might be a little confusing. Anyway, that is now the oldest small Pro with ongoing iPadOS support.
| iPadOS 17 | iPadOS 18 | |
|---|---|---|
| iPad | 2018 | 2019 |
| iPad mini | 2019 | 2019 |
| iPad Air | 2019 | 2019 |
| 12.9" iPad Pro | 2017 | 2018 |
| 10.5" iPad Pro | 2017 | discontinued |
| 11" iPad Pro | 2018 | 2018 |
Moving on to Apple Watches: watchOS 11 will be delivered to Apple Watch Series 6 and later (including Apple Watch SE (2022), aka 2nd generation). This means that the Apple Watch Series 4 and 5, along with the original Watch SE, are no longer supported – the most recent update for them remains watchOS 10.5.
| watchOS 10 | watchOS 11 | |
|---|---|---|
| Apple Watch | Series 4 | Series 6 |
| Apple Watch SE | SE 2020 | SE 2022 |
| Apple Watch Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
Next up, Macs and this will be short. There are almost no changes here and plenty of Intel-powered models move on to macOS Sequoia. The one exception to that is that MacBook Air models from 2018 and 2019 (which used 8th gen Intel processors) are dropped, while the MacBook Air from 2020 (the last with an Intel, using a 10th gen CPU) remains supported.
| macOS Sonoma | macOS Sequoia | |
|---|---|---|
| iMac | 2019 | 2019 |
| iMac Pro | 2017 | 2017 |
| Mac Pro | 2019 | 2019 |
| Mac Studio | 2022 | 2022 |
| MacBook Air | 2018 | 2020 |
| Mac mini | 2018 | 2018 |
| MacBook Pro | 2018 | 2018 |
All Apple Silicon Macs are getting Sequoia, of course. And it goes without saying that the new iPad Pros with an M4 chip and the new iPad Airs with M2 are getting updated (they are only a month old, after all).
But there is something to note: Apple Intelligence is coming to the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max (older and vanilla models not invited) as well as iPads and Macs with the M1 chip (or later). This means that several iPads and Macs will get iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia without Intelligence.
