Apple Watch Adds Listening

Apple’s new watches add health and listening features, prompting privacy questions.

•Mostly Center

The new Apple Watch can listen in on your conversations and take notes. That makes me feel weird.

Read the Apple document explaining how new listening features still protect your privacy

How the new Apple Watches compare to the last-gen models

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Apple announced the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 with Audio Intelligence, an opt-in set of microphone-based features that can generate conversation recaps, brief transcriptions and summaries, Live Rewind, Sound Recognition and Music Recognition. Both watches run the new S11 chip with a quad-core Neural Engine and include a Health Sensing System for higher-frequency heart-rate and HRV measurements. Apple says raw audio is handled within dedicated hardware as part of its privacy design. Preorders have opened, with base prices unchanged from the prior models.

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Always-listening privacyMostly Center

Apple Watch’s new AI audio features create serious privacy concerns because they rely on microphone data and make constant listening feel normal. That sits uneasily with Apple’s privacy-first image, and Apple is minimizing how unsettling the shift may be.