Yesterday, Apple announced the next major versions of its various operating systems – phones, tablets, watches, and computers. However, support for some older devices was discontinued. We’ll cover the iPhone situation in a separate post, here’s what’s happening with other Apple devices.
Starting with tablets, iPadOS 18 is coming to most slates that are still supported. There are a few exceptions, however. The vanilla iPad from 2018 (aka 6th generation) has been discontinued, and only the 2019 (7th generation) and newer models are getting the update. The 12.9” iPad Pro from 2017 (2nd generation) has also been retired, the oldest big Pro that still exists is from 2018 (3rd generation).
The 10.5” iPad Pro from 2017, which has also been discontinued, 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 can be a little confusing. Anyway, this is now the oldest smaller 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 | Close |
| 11″ iPad Pro | 2018 | 2018 |
Speaking of Apple Watches, watchOS 11 will be delivered to Apple Watch Series 6 and later models (including the Apple Watch SE (2022), aka 2nd generation). This means that the Apple Watch Series 4 and 5, as well as the original Watch SE, are no longer supported – the most recent update for them is watchOS 10.5.
| watchOS 10 | watchOS 11 | |
|---|---|---|
| Apple Watch | Series 4 | Series 6 |
| Apple Watch SE | SE 2020 | SE 2022 |
| Apple Watch Ultra | extremely | extremely |
Next, Mac and that will be brief. There are almost no changes here and a lot of Intel-powered models have moved to macOS Sequoia. The one exception to this is that the 2018 and 2019 MacBook Air models (which used 8th-generation Intel processors) have been dropped, while the 2020 MacBook Air (the last model with Intel, using 10th-generation CPUs) is 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 Pro with the M4 chip and the new iPad Air with the M2 are getting updated (they’re only a month old, after all).
But it’s worth noting that Apple Intelligence is coming to the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max (older and vanilla models are not invited), as well as iPads and Macs with the M1 chip (or later). This means many iPads and Macs will get iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia without Intelligence.
