During its Surprise and Shine event held in Cupertino on Wednesday, Apple introduced the Apple Watch Series 12 alongside the Apple Watch Ultra 4. Although the physical design of these wearables remains largely unchanged, Apple has introduced several major software enhancements.
In a direct move to compete with the rising popularity of AI-powered wearables, Apple showcased its new “Audio Intelligence” suite, designed to help users capture missed moments and retain crucial details from spoken interactions.
Among the flagship additions is “Live Rewind,” which enables users to jump back in time by up to 15 seconds. By double-pressing the Digital Crown, a text snippet displaying the last 15 seconds of audio appears on screen. From there, users can query Siri regarding the transcribed text or log it in the revamped Siri app for future reference.
Another tool, “Siri Recap,” assists in recalling important highlights from everyday discussions. Utilizing continuous background audio detection, it summarizes conversations such as work meetings or parent-teacher discussions. Once enabled, Apple Intelligence creates a summary with a title and key takeaways inside the new Siri app following a conversation.
Additionally, an updated “Sound Recognition” capability helps individuals with hearing impairments by actively detecting specific environmental sounds, including sirens, doorbells, alarms, and crying babies.
Apple emphasized that these audio-based AI tools operate without creating or saving permanent sound recordings.
On the health front, both smartwatches include an updated sensor array featuring expanded electrode surface area for improved skin contact during ECG scans. The optical sensor layout has also been refined, placing photodiodes in a ring configuration to gather light more effectively, paired with energy-efficient green LEDs for reliable all-day heart rate tracking during movement.
This upgraded sensor framework collects continuous heart rate metrics much more frequently—a crucial metric for monitoring wellness. The watch now records background heart rate data every five seconds throughout the day, representing a 60-fold increase in sampling frequency compared to previous generations.
Borrowing a popular feature from smart rings, the new models introduce a daily readiness score. Every morning, the watch evaluates sleep quality, recent physical activity, and vital signs to produce a unified score reflecting how ready your body is for the day ahead.
Users will also find a new “Health Age” metric, which calculates an estimated biological health age by comparing data like VO2 max and sleep quality gathered by the device against chronological age.
Pricing for the Apple Watch Series 12 begins at $399, whereas the Apple Watch Ultra 4 starts at $499.