THE CRUNCH
Apple's Audio Intelligence features for the Apple Watch have moved into beta testing, starting with developers in the iOS 27.3 update. The four opt-in features, announced at September's Surprise and Shine event, cover sound recognition, song identification, Live Rewind and Siri Recaps, and run on Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4.
Live Rewind lets wearers double-press the digital crown to see a text snippet of what was said in the last 15 seconds, useful for missed directions or a spoken list. An audible chime and on-watch animation signal that something was captured, and unsaved snippets are deleted automatically after 30 seconds. Saved snippets go to the standalone Siri app, and an "Ask Siri" option can answer questions about what was said.
Siri Recaps goes further, summarising conversations into a short sentence and bullet points covering things like dates, deadlines or pricing. Apple says it does not identify speakers, store raw audio or produce word-for-word transcriptions, and the feature omits sensitive information such as government identifiers, financial and authentication data, and language promoting self-harm. Recaps are skipped when headphones with noise cancellation are in use, and unsaved recaps delete within seven days.
Users can enable recaps manually or on a schedule, such as only during work hours, and can switch the feature off at any time from Control Center. The other two features are more straightforward: sound recognition flags sirens, alarms and doorbells for deaf and hard-of-hearing users, while song identification draws on Apple's Shazam app.