Reputed Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes that the Apple Watch Series 3 already has one foot in the grave. It could meet its end of life in the third quarter of 2022.

Kuo reasons that eh computational power that the Apple Watch Series 3 packs would be inadequate for upcoming versions of watchOS. The Apple Watch Series 3 has soldiered through the last three years facing competition from the affordable Apple Watch SE.

Apple Watch Series 3 may go to end-of-life (EOL) in 3Q22 because the computing power can’t meet the requirements of the new watchOS.

— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) March 21, 2022

The Apple Watch Series 3 was introduced in September 2017 and has enjoyed a solid five-year run in the market. It is also the oldest Apple wearable that supports watchOS 8. The performance that the Apple Watch Series 3’s S3 chip offers is a far cry from the current-generation Apple Watch Series 7’s S7 chip. Moreover, outdated hardware could also be making it cumbersome to update watchOS.

Since the watchOS 7.5 update last year, Apple Watch Series 3 users have complained that the wearable doesn’t have enough internal memory to complete an update independently. Users need to unpair the Apple Watch from their iPhone and pair it again after the update for this reason.

Apple is expected to pull the wraps off watchOS 9 later this year alongside the Apple Watch SE 2 and Apple Watch Series 8. Since the Apple Watch Series 7 was an incremental upgrade to the Apple Watch Series 6, the upcoming update is expected to be a major one with several changes. According to Kuo, these changes to the Apple Watch lineup and watchOS, the Apple Watch Series 3 will be retired around Q3 2022. Share your thought about this with us in the comments section below.