Apple Watch with watchOS 27 no longer a “walkie-talkie” | News

System 27 brings countless innovations for all systems, but Apple also made red flags in other areas at the same time. This concerns the loss of support for Intel Macs, preparations for the end of encrypted HFS+ – and a feature on the Apple Watch that was once demonstrated in detail during a keynote. We’re talking about “Walkie-Talkie”, a feature introduced in 2018 with watchOS 5. There is no trace of this in the recently published 27 beta – both in the case of the app itself and the button in the control center.

Walkie-Talkie should enable fast voice communication via Apple Watch to other devices. What seemed charming when introduced never became very important in most users’ everyday lives – and at times even had to be paused completely due to serious security deficiencies. If Apple actually removes the app permanently, it would hardly be a hard cut, but rather a quiet cleanup in watchOS.

There are also cuts elsewhere
We had already discussed another example of the big red flag in an earlier report, namely the unusually rigid model policy with regard to hardware support. While Apple is actually known for supporting hardware with software updates for an above-average period of time, buyers of an Apple Watch Ultra (2022) will be faced with closed doors starting this fall. This is surprising since the top version of the smartwatch was advertised as robust and durable – but the latter obviously only applies to the casing.

The Apple Watch Series 9, released in 2023, is now compatible with watchOS 27, contrary to what was initially announced. There is currently no official explanation as to why software support is being cut off so early this time. Also affected are the Series 6, Series 7, Series 8 and the Apple Watch SE 2, all of which can still be operated with watchOS 26.