US — TechCrunch
I tried Apple’s Siri Recaps. They’re surprisingly useful — and a little unsettling
AI1 min read
Apple is testing new AI audio features on Apple Watch, including Siri Recaps, which listens to your day and saves short notes. A reviewer found it useful but also a little creepy.
What happened
Apple released testing versions of new Audio Intelligence features for iOS 27.3 and watchOS 27.3. The features work on Apple Watch Series 12. Two of them, Live Rewind and Siri Recaps, record and then turn spoken words into text or summaries. A reviewer tried Siri Recaps for a day and found it helpful, but it also raised privacy worries.
Key facts
- Apple added four new AI features: sound detection, song identification, Live Rewind, and Siri Recaps.
- Live Rewind lets you replay the last 15 seconds of speech.
- Siri Recaps saves notes about important things said during the day.
- Apple says it does not identify speakers, does not store raw audio files, and removes private details like ID numbers and account information.
How the features work
Sound detection helps find alarms and doorbells, which helps deaf and hard-of-hearing users. Song identification uses Shazam, a music-finding service Apple owns. Live Rewind and Siri Recaps are the ones that raise privacy questions, because they listen to conversations around the watch's owner. Apple runs many of these AI tasks on the device when it can, instead of sending audio to the cloud.
Why it matters
The reviewer saw real value. Siri Recaps captured car repair fees, timing, and rental gas details that were said too fast to write down. But it also mixed in unrelated family plans and recorded casual talk that was not worth saving. This shows that always-listening tools can be handy, yet they can also feel invasive, especially when conversations are personal.
What to watch
- Whether Apple improves how Siri Recaps sorts notes into separate topics.
- How well the feature avoids saving unimportant or personal talk.
- How people react to always-listening technology becoming normal.
Glossary
- Siri Recaps
- An Apple Watch feature that listens to your day and saves short notes about important things said.
- Live Rewind
- An Apple Watch feature that lets you go back and see what was said in the last 15 seconds.
- Audio Intelligence
- Apple's group of AI features that work with sound, such as detecting alarms or summarizing talk.
- Shazam
- A service that identifies songs from short audio clips. Apple owns it.
- watchOS
- The operating system that runs on Apple Watch.