Your Apple Watch has 2 new controversial listening features – but you have to opt in
Siri Recap and Live Rewind are finally here, two months after Apple unveiled the always-listening Apple Watch features. Here’s how they work.
Apple has introduced two new, always-listening Audio Intelligence features on the Apple Watch Series 12 and the Apple Watch Ultra 4, with the iOS 27.3 developer beta. Both features, Siri Recap and Live Rewind, are currently opt-in. Siri Recap offers a high-level summary of meetings, while Live Rewind continuously records audio, allowing users to retrieve a transcript of the last 15 seconds.
Siri Recap focuses on the key takeaways of conversations, such as dates, times, prices, and action items. For example, in a demo, it captured college application strategies discussed between a parent and child, including high school activities, essay topics, and college options. Saved recaps can be accessed or exported to Notes or Journal after seven days.
The feature automatically excludes personal identifiers and language promoting self-harm, financial data, and authentication details. Users can enable or disable Recaps anytime via Control Center.
Live Rewind is designed for moments when you miss crucial information in a conversation. By double-clicking the Digital Crown, users can access a 15-second transcript, which the watch displays for 30 seconds, complete with an animation and chime. The audio buffer updates continuously, deleting any unused audio. Live Rewind operates on the device, ensuring no audio data is sent to Apple or accessed by the watch itself. Both features are opt-out by default, and users can turn them on or off at any time.
Written by urgent.news from ZDNet's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
