Apple says your $17,000 Apple Watch Edition is now obsolete

If you bought the Apple Watch Edition back in 2015, you're probably not going to want to keep reading this because we've got some bad news for you.

According to an internal Apple memo seen by MacRumors, the original Apple Watch has now been added to Apple's list of obsolete products. That happened on September 30 which means that you're now using an Apple Watch that you might want to consider replacing. The problem? Some people bought the Apple Watch Edition which, depending on the model bought, could have cost up to $17,000.

The list of obsolete models includes the 18-karat gold model which was discontinued in 2016 after, presumably, nobody bought it. It was replaced in Apple's lineup by the white ceramic model which was arguably nicer to look at and cost a lot less - just $1299.

However, this news doesn't functionally mean all that much on the day-to-day. The original Apple Watch was dropped from watchOS updates years ago and was last supported by watchOS 4. The watchOS 5 update in 2018 effectively killed the model off.

Apple classes models as being obsolete once more than seven years have passed since the product was last sold. In the case of the original Apple Watch, that was killed off in September of 2016 which means that it's now beyond that seven-year threshold. MacRumors notes that Apple is yet to update its public list of vintage and obsolete products to add the original Apple Watch, likely because it knows there are people walking around with an $17,000 watch on their wrists.