Apple explains how Watch's bizarre 15-second conversation rewind works without actually recording you
Earlier this week, Apple made a series of exciting announcements during its ‘Surprise and shine’ event, including the company’s first ever foldable phone and the latest model of iPhone.
The tech giant also introduced its newest version of the Apple Watch, with Series 12 set to come with a whole host of exciting new features.
However, there is one feature in particular that has a lot of people confused as to how it works.
The Live Rewind is part of Apple’s new Audio Intelligence, which lets you double-press the Digital Crown and retrieve a short snippet of what was just said, which could be handy if you missed a sentence or didn't quite catch what someone said.
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This has led some people to question whether the conversation is recorded the entire time, to which Apple has said no.
How does Live Rewind on the Apple Watch work?
So, if it’s not recording the whole conversation then how does it work? Apple explains: “Live Rewind only activates when you deliberately double-press the Digital Crown. It only shows the last 15 seconds of speech as a text snippet on your display. It doesn't continue to transcribe in the background, nor does it save the text unless you choose to ask Siri about the content or save it to the Siri app. You can turn it on through the Watch app on iPhone - just open the Watch app, tap Siri, then tap Live Rewind and turn on “Double Click Digital Crown.”
The firm continues: “Audio Intelligence features don’t create audio recordings. No audio can be accessed by the operating system, apps, you, or even Apple. There is no recording to share, forward, or produce if requested by any party, because no recording exists.”
That means there isn’t a growing audio file sitting on your Apple Watch containing everything you’ve said or heard.
Instead, an isolated part of the new S11 chip is designed to keep sensitive sensor data separate from the rest of the device, with Apple adding that the raw audio isn’t stored, transcribed or made available to the operating system or apps.
When you deliberately activate Live Rewind with the Digital Crown, the Watch can use the temporary audio data to produce the information you were looking for.
Apple’s wider Audio Intelligence system also includes features such as Siri Recap, which can create summaries from conversations and other audio, but the firm has said that these features have been designed around keeping raw audio from becoming a permanent recording.