Apple Watch Series 3 gracefully mortified at just under 5 years old

Like a cat trying to hide its pain, the Apple Series 3 Watch quietly disappeared on Wednesday afternoon after the company announced the latest Apple Watches, including the ultra-premium rugged Apple Watch Ultra. There was no room in Apple’s lineup for S3, and there probably wasn’t room on S3 for watchOS 9. Series 3 would have been 5 years old on September 22nd.

The Series 3 lingered in Apple’s lineup for a strangely long period, outliving every other Series release other than the 7 (which could indeed be related, depending on how you timed these things). These were “discount”Apple Watches, even if they were often only $30-$50 less than the Apple Watch SE and sometimes much more expensive than refurbished third-party Apple Watches. In July, Corey Gaskin of Ars Technica wrote in an Apple Watch buyer’s guide that the Series 3 “is more like a small toy at the moment”and maybe worth putting on for kids who don’t notice their phone. ringing

As with most lives, the Series 3 had a different, flashier look from the get-go. It was the first Apple Watch to feature an (activated) climb and stair tracking altimeter, voice responses from Siri, and most importantly, LTE connectivity allowing it to be used without having a phone nearby for a Bluetooth connection. This was seen as a boon for runners, cyclists, and anyone else who sought to loosen the cord connection they felt with their phone. Ars wrote at the time that this could be a turning point for the Watch.

At least when it worked. Connectivity issues plagued the Ars Series 3 reviewer, as well as the peculiar red dot that Apple placed on the crown of the LTE models. The extra $10 a month you paid your carrier for an eSIM on the watch made those issues even more unfair. It felt faster than the Series 2, however, and watchOS updates eventually ironed out some of those issues.

Had the Series 3 retired gracefully when the Series 4 arrived, it would have retained a respectable reputation and a prominent top spot. The same would be true for the September 2020 Apple Watch SE debut. The Watch SE, like the iPhone SE, has pieced together pieces of models Apple has already made into a budget offering. The SE was priced at $280, noticeably less than the parallel $399 Series 6. But the Series 3 decided to keep running in senior status, costing $199 and getting OS upgrades.

These OS updates were not easy. Wi-Fi Series 3 has only 8 GB of storage. As the Apple Watch expanded to do more things, the OS took up more space and tested the Series 3’s limits. As The Verge clarifies, any watchOS update, even the 0.1 security patch, required the Series 3 to be cleared and rebooted at least twice, skipping new code between annoyingly long processes.

With relatives talking in hushed tones about the ailing family, Apple previously announced that watchOS 9 would be available on Series 4 and later without saying anything definite about its future. When the Apple Store was updated after today’s Apple event, the Series 3 was no longer with us.