At its iPhone launch event in Cupertino on Wednesday, Apple announced the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4. While the new smartwatches don't feature a major hardware redesign, they come with significant software upgrades focused on AI-driven audio capabilities—a direct move to counter the rising tide of AI wearables.
Audio Intelligence: A New Era for Wearables
The standout feature is "Audio Intelligence," designed to help users capture and revisit key moments from their daily conversations. This includes two primary functions:
- Live Rewind: With a double press of the Digital Crown, users can replay up to the last 15 seconds of a conversation as a text snippet. They can then ask Siri about the content or save it to the new Siri app for later reference.
- Siri Recap: This feature uses ambient listening to generate high-level notes from conversations, such as takeaways from a team meeting or a parent-teacher conference. When enabled, Apple Intelligence automatically creates a title and key points in the Siri app after the conversation concludes.
Additionally, a new "Sound Recognition" feature listens for specific sounds like sirens, alarms, doorbells, or a baby crying, which is particularly beneficial for users who are hard of hearing.
Apple emphasizes that these audio intelligence features do not create or store audio recordings, ensuring user privacy.
Enhanced Health Sensing System
Both new smartwatches are equipped with an upgraded health-sensing system. This includes an increased electrode surface area for better skin contact during ECG readings, and redesigned photodiodes arranged in a ring to capture light more efficiently for improved optical sensing. More power-efficient green LEDs enable accurate heart-rate measurements throughout the day, even during physical activity.
The system now delivers higher-frequency continuous heart rate data—a critical indicator of overall health. Background heart rate readings are taken every five seconds all day long, even while the user is moving, making these measurements 60 times more frequent than previous models.
This combination of AI-driven audio features and advanced health monitoring positions the new Apple Watches as formidable contenders in the evolving wearables landscape of 2026.
via TechCrunch