Apple announces new software for its devices once a year, at the World Wide Developers Conference. That took place on Monday, June 10 and it confirmed precisely the reports that had leaked ahead of time. That report from a reliable source said that more Apple Watches than ever are going to lose support from the next watchOS release. It’s now confirmed: three Watches won’t get the benefits of watchOS 11.

The Watches that will have to do without are the Apple Watch Series 4, Apple Watch Series 5 and Apple Watch SE 1st generation. And further information has come to light about why these Watches will find support discontinued.

As Tom’s Guide points out, in a report subtitled “We didn’t see this coming,” said “The compatibility details at the bottom of Apple’s watchOS 11 Newsroom announcement took us by surprise. Although the move makes sense when you give it some context. Prior to the Apple Watch Series 9, the Apple Watch Series 6 was the last Apple Watch to welcome a performance-boosting processor. With the kinds of new Apple Watch upgrades baked into watchOS 11, it's very possible that earlier chips can't properly handle the processing demands. More watch features and apps than ever use machine learning, after all.”

And there are plenty of new features coming to watchOS 11, such as the capability to pause your Activity Rings, to avoid annihilating your long-built-up streak because you need a day off, for instance. There are also new insights into your workouts with Training Load and a new app called Vitals, which shows your health metrics in a snapshot.

According to MacRumors, the report comes from a private X account with a solid track record for these kinds of details.

Joe Rossignol says, “The leaker who revealed this information has a private account on X, so we have elected not to share its name or link to it, but they have shared accurate compatibility information and build numbers for Apple's software updates in the past.”