One of the big revelations at yesterday’s Apple event was the new Siri AI features, and in particular, what these features mean for the new Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4. The two new watches have built-in microphones and can now automatically detect music playing in the background and silently take notes on your conversations throughout the day to give you a recap.
Let’s dive into all the new audio features coming to Apple Watch:
Sound recognition
Arguably the most helpful feature — especially for anyone hard of hearing or deaf — is the sound recognition feature. This allows your watch to detect important sounds like sirens, alarms, and doorbells and alert you, even if you don’t have your iPhone nearby.
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Automatic music recognition
If you’ve ever tried to Shazam a song and not been fast enough to catch it, this feature is for you. Music recognition automatically detects the song playing in the background and displays the name of the artist and the title in the Smart Stack.
Live Rewind
Live Rewind allows you to double click on the Digital Crown and receive a transcript of what was said in the last 15 seconds. It’s designed to allow you to catch something you missed in a conversation, or to save yourself from awkwardness when you immediately forget your colleague’s name. Once recalled, you can ask Siri for more information, or save it to the Siri app.
When you press the Digital Crown for this feature, a chime will sound, even if your watch is on silent or you’re wearing headphones. Apple says this is to alert those nearby that you are using the feature.
Siri Recap
Finally, when turned on, Siri recap will take notes of your conversations throughout the day and create Apple Intelligence-generated summaries you can use later. Summaries auto-delete after seven days if you haven’t saved them and you can set Siri recap to only record in certain locations, like at work, or during particular times of the day.
If all of this sounds like something you’d rather not use, Apple have stressed that each Audio Intelligence feature is automatically disabled on the watch: you have to opt-in to the ones you want to use.
The company also stressed that any data collected using Live Rewind or Siri Recap will be encrypted — you won’t be able to see who said what, and it doesn’t store voice recordings. Siri Recaps will also omit potentially harmful content, such as language promoting self-harm or hateful speech, and sensitive information, such as financial data.
These features will be available later in the year, and we’ll be sure to test them and bring you our verdict.
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