The new Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 come not with better fitness tracking and upgraded noise reduction
Compiled by KHAO Editorial — aggregated from 1 source. See llms.txt for citation guidance.
◌ Single Source
Apple announced on Wednesday that the two smartwatches come with four opt-in “audio intelligence” tools that are powered by audio gathered by the watches’ microphones.
Key facts
- The new Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 come not with better fitness tracking and upgraded noise reduction, but also a whole new way to listen
- If it detects a conversation, audio goes into a protected buffer within the Secure Exclave on the Apple Watch, the watch encrypts it, and then transmits it using Apple’s special secure Bluetooth
- Sound Recognition, for example, alerts users about sounds in their environment—including doorbells, sirens, alarms, or, say, a baby crying—without sending any data off the watch
- The chips include a special memory-protected space that Apple calls the Secure Exclave
Summary
The new Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 come not with better fitness tracking and upgraded noise reduction, but also a whole new way to listen. Seemingly wary that the features could make it feel like the walls have ears, Apple is emphasizing that all of them are built to prioritize privacy and security using the extensive infrastructure the company has developed to protect its other Apple Intelligence and Siri services. “These features do not create or store audio recordings, and raw audio used for processing is completely inaccessible to the operating systems, apps, the user, or Apple,” the company wrote in a report shared with WIRED. The new Apple Watch features are designed to process as much data locally on devices as possible, so potentially sensitive data doesn’t go to the cloud.