The Vitals app on Apple Watch Ultra 4, showing a Recovery HRV reading. Credit: Apple Apple’s new watches can replay the last 15 seconds of a conversation you just had. Press the Digital Crown twice and the words appear as text on your wrist. The feature is called Live Rewind.
It arrives with the Apple Watch Series 12 and the Apple Watch Ultra 4. It will not work in the EU at launch. Apple announced both watches and a new pair of AirPods on Wednesday. The Series 12 starts at $399, the Ultra 4 at $799, and AirPods 5 at $129.
All three go on sale on Friday 18 September. A watch with ears Live Rewind is one of four features Apple groups as Audio Intelligence. It is the reason the S11 chip exists. Sound Recognition alerts deaf and hard-of-hearing users to sirens, alarms, doorbells and a baby crying.
It runs on-device, without an iPhone nearby. Siri Recap writes a short summary of a conversation afterwards, with a title and key points. Shazam identifies music playing around you. Live Rewind is the one that will start arguments.
Fifteen seconds of what was just said, rendered as text. On a device sitting on your wrist, in a room full of people who did not agree to it. Apple has clearly thought about that. The privacy engineering is the real story The S11 chip contains what Apple calls a Secure Exclave.
It is a hardware-isolated compartment. It processes audio in complete isolation from the rest of the system, then deletes it. No recordings are created or stored. Apple says the raw audio is inaccessible to the operating system, to apps, to the user and to Apple itself.
The design choices matter as much as the silicon. Audio Intelligence does not identify or attribute speakers. Siri Recap produces a summary rather than a transcript. Apple says it excludes financial information and government identifiers.
Every feature is opt-in individually. Most telling is the chime. Live Rewind sounds one when it runs, even if the watch is on silent. It also shows a full-screen animation and a microphone indicator.
The people around you are meant to hear and see it happening. That is a company designing against the obvious objection rather than around it. Europe is excluded again Audio Intelligence “will not initially be available in the EU.” That is footnote 2 on the Series 12 release. It is footnote 3 on the Ultra 4.
Siri AI on watchOS carries the same restriction. Apple gives no reason and no date for either. Both features also need an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone 16 or later, excluding the iPhone 16e. Live Rewind and Siri Recap arrive in beta late this year, in English first.
The heart rate claim, and how it was tested Apple says both watches deliver the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable. The basis is its own study of more than 1,000 participants against leading rival devices. The new Health Sensing System uses larger green LEDs on the optical sensor. Heart rate is now measured every five seconds, all day.
Heart rate variability is measured up to 24 times more often. It is now split into two readings. Recovery HRV covers daily stress and recovery. Overall HRV covers longer-term cardiovascular health.
Out of that comes readiness, a single score from 0 to 10. It carries one of four verdicts: Recover, Pace Yourself, Ready, or Go For It. It updates through the day. Apple built the algorithm from its own Heart and Movement Study.
Every accuracy claim here is Apple testing Apple against competitors it does not name. Take them as marketing until somebody independent runs the same test. Apple is now selling blood tests This is the line most coverage will skip. A redesigned Health app arrives later this year with a Longevity tab and a Health Age feature.
Inside it, users can book and pay for lab panels covering more than 50 biomarkers. The price is $119, at roughly 2,000 Quest Diagnostics locations. Apple has spent a decade collecting health data. It is now selling the clinical tests that sit underneath it.
The Health app redesign is US English only to start. Battery is where the Ultra earns its price The Ultra 4 runs more than two days on a charge, up to 50 hours, or 84 hours in Low Power Mode. Fifteen minutes of charging adds up to 18 hours. The workout numbers are the point.
Extended Workout mode gives 25 hours with full GPS and heart rate. Max Extended Workout stretches to 45 hours, still taking a GPS reading every second. Apple notes that is typically enough to finish a 100-mile race. The Series 12 holds at 24 hours of everyday use, with 10 hours of outdoor workout tracking, up 25%.
Fifteen minutes of charging buys 12 hours. Aluminium Series 12 models get Ceramic Shield 2, which Apple says is 60% tougher than the Ion-X glass on the Series 11. AirPods 5 put ANC at $129 Credit: Apple The cheapest AirPods now have active noise cancellation in an open-ear design, which is the hard version of the problem. Apple claims they remove up to 50% more external noise than AirPods 4 with ANC.
The work is done by a new multiport acoustic architecture and revised computational audio. Transparency mode is improved. Adaptive Audio blends the two. Conversation Awareness drops your volume when you start speaking.
Live Translation now runs across the entire AirPods line. Siri Interactions let you answer Siri by nodding or shaking your head. The $149 model adds a wireless charging case, on-stem volume swipe, and five hours of playback with ANC on, rising to 22 hours with the case. “We’re thrilled that with AirPods 5, we’re able to bring Active Noise Cancellation, one of our most beloved features, to our most affordable AirPods,” said Dave Pakula, Apple’s vice president of hardware engineering. One caveat on the superlative.
Apple’s own footnote names the comparison set: the bestselling wireless open-ear headphones available when it tested, in July 2026. That is a narrower field than it sounds. Holding prices in a year when nobody else could The Series 12 stays at $399 and AirPods 5 arrive at $129. That is worth noticing.
We reported on Tuesday that DRAM contract prices are still climbing, and Omdia said in August that memory costs were already pushing wearable prices up, naming Samsung’s Galaxy Watch range specifically. Apple has spent this year raising prices and growing anyway on Macs and iPhones. On the accessories it held the line. The rest of the line watchOS 27 adds a single-handed tap gesture, a dynamic app grid, and support for perimenopause and menopause in Cycle Tracking.
Workout Buddy now runs without an iPhone nearby and speaks Spanish. Series 12 comes in dark bronze, black, light gold and space gray aluminium, radiant gold and natural titanium, and for the first time a ceramic version in pearl white and night blue. The Ultra 4 stays in natural and black titanium. Hermès versions of both arrive, the Ultra 4 with a titanium band that extends over a wetsuit.
What to watch Whether anyone independent replicates the heart rate accuracy study. Whether Live Rewind survives contact with European regulators, and on what terms. We wrote in August that new sensors were expected rather than redesigns, which is what arrived. And whether a $119 blood panel booked through a phone is where John Ternus takes the health business next.
