Apple's plan to let its newest watches listen to the conversations around you and turn them into text is moving into testing. The Audio Intelligence features for Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 are entering beta and will reach developers first in the iOS 27.3 update, TechCrunch reported on 2 November. A public beta follows, then a release for everyone.
Apple has said the next iOS developer beta starts on 4 November and that iOS 27.3 will be released to the public in December, according to 9to5Mac, citing Apple's China newsroom. The same update brings Apple Intelligence to China, which TheStak covered yesterday.
What the watch does
- Live Rewind: a double-press of the Digital Crown shows the previous 15 seconds of speech as a text snippet. You can ask Siri about it or save it to the Siri app; otherwise it disappears about 30 seconds after the display dims.
- Siri Recap: when switched on, it takes ambient notes and produces a short summary with key points such as dates, deadlines and prices. Unsaved recaps delete themselves after seven days.
- Sound Recognition: alerts for sirens, alarms and doorbells, aimed at people who are deaf or hard of hearing, even when the iPhone is not nearby.
- Music Recognition with Shazam: shows the song playing nearby in the Smart Stack without a tap.
Apple first showed the features at its September launch, describing Siri Recap as a way for users to be "more present and engaged in the moment" in its newsroom announcement.
Related · AI and Tech StakApple Brings Its AI to China, With Alibaba's Qwen in SiriApple Intelligence reaches China in December with iOS 27.3, using Alibaba's Qwen in Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence. Beta from 4 November.The privacy question
A watch that can transcribe a conversation raises obvious questions for the people in the room. Apple's support page says Audio Intelligence makes no audio recordings: raw audio is processed in a protected buffer on the watch's chip and deleted straight after. Live Rewind plays an audible chime, even on silent, and shows a full-screen animation and a microphone indicator. Recaps do not say who said what, and Apple says they leave out government ID numbers, financial and login details and some other personal data, while warning that the filtering may not catch everything.
Recaps are not made entirely on the device. The iPhone condenses the conversation into encrypted text, less than half its original length, and sends it to Apple's Private Cloud Compute servers to write the summary, which Apple says keeps no data afterwards. TechCrunch reports that Recap does not run while you are listening to music on headphones or using noise cancellation, and that you can set it to a schedule, such as work hours only.
Who gets it
Live Rewind and Siri Recap need a Series 12 or Ultra 4 paired with an iPhone 16 or later, the iPhone Air or iPhone Duo, with Apple Intelligence and the Siri AI beta switched on. They start in English, with more languages later, and are not available to users under 13. Apple says Siri AI will not at first be available in the EU; its support page does not list other countries. Apple also warns that summaries and snippets may be incomplete or inaccurate, so anything important should be checked.
- TechCrunch: Apple Watch's AI features for rewinding and recapping conversations begin beta testing
- Apple Support: About Audio Intelligence features on Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4
- Apple Newsroom: Siri AI, a profoundly more capable and personal assistant, is here
- 9to5Mac: Apple confirms iOS 27.3 beta is coming next week with Apple Intelligence in China
