Is your Apple Watch listening? How Siri Recap and Live Rewind work

Imagine dropping your car off at the mechanic. They tell you a lot: the price, when it'll be ready, which parts they'll replace. A minute later you've forgotten half of it. Apple says the Apple Watch can now help.

On November 3, Apple released the first developer betas of watchOS 27.3 and iOS 27.3. They bring two new features: Live Rewind and Siri Recap.

The problem: we forget a lot

Every day people tell us important things out loud: how to take a medicine, a phone number, directions. Few of us pull out a phone to write them down, so much of it gets lost.

Solution one: Live Rewind

Double-press the Digital Crown and Apple Watch shows what was said in the last 15 seconds as text. If you missed something, you don't have to ask "can you say that again?"

• It only works when you press it yourself. It doesn't listen in the background.
• Every use plays a chime, even in silent mode, and a microphone indicator appears on the display so people nearby know.
• If you don't save the text, it disappears about 30 seconds after the display dims.
• It's processed on the watch itself.

Solution two: Siri Recap

Siri Recap goes further. When it's on, it listens to conversations around you through the day. After each one, it writes a title, a short summary and key points in the Siri app.

• It's a summary, not a transcript, and it doesn't say who said what.
• It leaves out sensitive data such as bank details and ID numbers.
• Recaps are deleted after 7 days unless you save them.
• You can schedule it, for example "only at work" or "never at night", and switch it on or off from Control Center.

A real-world test

TechCrunch's Sarah Perez tried Siri Recap for a day. At a car repair drop-off and a rental pickup, Recap captured the key details: the deductible, the repair time and the rental's fuel level. She said it won her over in a single day.

There was an unsettling side too. Recap mixed in conversations from home, like errands and babysitting times, and even noted a plan to watch election coverage on TV. She called it a stark reminder that the watch was listening to everyday conversations.

Privacy: what Apple says

• No audio recordings are created. Audio is processed in a protected part of the S11 chip and deleted immediately.
• For Siri Recap, a condensed, encrypted transcript goes to Apple's Private Cloud Compute, which Apple says it cannot access.
• Apple itself says summaries may be incomplete or inaccurate.

Who can use it?

*The feature is still in testing and will be available soon. Apple hasn't said when it will reach everyone.

What it means for you

If you own an Apple Watch Series 12 or Ultra 4, you'll be able to turn these features on from the Watch app on iPhone once the final version is released. Since only English is supported, Kurdish and Arabic conversations won't be captured yet.