Apple Watch: privacy promises won’t fix how it feels

Apple held its iPhone event on Wednesday, and the hardware announcements were exactly as rumoured. As usual, the surprises were in the software. I’d been planning for months to replace my first-generation Ultra, and was excited to see what new features the new Ultra might have. But two of the new features now have me worried about the future of wearable tech in general.

Along with some great health features, Apple announced “Live Rewind” and “Siri Recap”. Here’s how Apple describes these features:

Live Rewind catches what you missed. Did someone say something you couldn’t hear in a loud restaurant or share cooking instructions you didn’t quite catch? Just double-click the Digital Crown, and Live Rewind transcribes what was said in the last 15 seconds. You can ask Siri about the content of the transcript or save it to the new Siri app to revisit later.

Siri Recap can summarize your chats to refresh your memory. Siri Recap transforms your conversations into high-level notes, so you can stay focused and present. Each Siri Recap includes a title, a summary and key points that you can review in the Siri app on your Apple Watch or iPhone. You can turn Siri Recap off or on at any time from Control Center or choose where and when it takes notes, such as only at work or never at night.

Live Rewind and Siri Recap are noted to be “coming in beta late 2026”. They’re demoed starting at 43:48 in the event video. It’s also noted that “[u]sage limits may apply”.

Both of these features require constantly streaming audio from the watch to the phone. They use a combination of on-device and cloud AI features to generate summaries of conversations. In other words, the watch is now always listening.

During the event, Apple took pains to explain the privacy guardrails built around these features. Actual audio is never recorded or stored, the people speaking aren’t identified, and the generated text is end-to-end encrypted. I think Apple has a good track record in this space, and I believe that they’ve done the hard work to make these features as privacy-preserving as possible. But that doesn’t matter.

I’m sure you, dear reader, know many people who believe their phone is always listening to them. Maybe you’ve tried unsuccessfully to convince them otherwise. I know I have. So why would it matter that a watch is actually listening all the time? My answer: because it’s categorically true now, which validates any previous worries. Not to mention that there’s also AI involved, and those two letters drive most people to a knee-jerk extreme.

If I were trying to defend the new Apple Watch features, I could trot out Apple’s privacy promises and track record. But, really, I’ve only got Apple’s word to go by. I could explain that everyone’s got a phone on them at all times. Anyone could be using their phone to record your conversation in a public space. I could even show that my Apple Watch has had a Voice Memos app since 2019. But again, none of it matters. Even if you know all the details and have full faith in Apple, this just feels different.

For one thing, the above examples require someone doing something surreptitious and deliberate. The watch is now capturing conversations by default, even if the results aren’t used. Yes, the default case is to ignore the content unless it’s requested later — but that’s only if the feature is working correctly. Once these features launch, many people will be wearing devices that can recount probably-correct-ish AI summaries of things that were said earlier. That’s deeply weird.

Apple is also heavily rumoured to be working on a new version of AirPods with cameras in them. If this turns out to be a thing, I’m sure Apple will say that they’re not “cameras”. They’d be “optical sensors”, and I’m sure Apple wouldn’t store any images from them. Even so, if these new AirPods come out, I expect there will be societal blowback. I think the same is true for the Apple Watch. You can already see this happening with Meta’s smart glasses. Plus, any modern Apple Watch or set of AirPods looks effectively the same. I worry that anyone (even someone using older devices) will get the stink-eye once these concerns start hitting the mainstream. This seems like a terrible position for a company whose brand promise revolves around privacy.

I wonder how Apple will react to feedback about these features. As I’ve said above, I don’t doubt that they’re doing a world-class job in terms of privacy and security. However, I worry that they’re doing a crappy job of reading the room. The features won’t ship with the watch, so there might be some time to rethink the “always listening” approach. I really hope they do. If the features do ship, I plan to disable them… but I worry that people will still give my watch a disapproving glance.

I hope the Apple Watch doesn’t go from being a device I love to one that I’m ashamed to wear.

1. And, to be fair, it’s sort of true. If you have “Hey Siri” enabled, then your device is always listening for those wake words. There was even a scandal in 2019 where false Siri activations were being recorded and sent to external contractors. It’s just not the reason why you’re seeing an ad for something on Facebook, or whatever.