The audio note taking feature is extremely off-putting to me and can't believe it was so prominently showcased.
It's made even worse by the fact that only the newest watches support this, but their external designs are unchanged from past ones, so there's no way to tell who's always listening to everything (I have an Ultra 2, likely my last one).
Is this something most people want?? At the very least I'd appreciate a notification like the unknown airtag thing to tell me I'm being eavesdropped.
The video demo is so strange. A waitress spoke too fast - just act like a normal person and politely ask them to repeat themselves, instead of reading a transcription on your watch. My goodness.
My father has hearing aids and in some environments, it doesn't work well (directional vs omnidirectional ... but directional requires the person to directly address him while omnidirectional tends to pick up too much background clutter). In doctors offices (for example) he has handed his phone in dictation mode to the receptionist and asked them to speak to it and then he reads the transcription and responds... and this repeats. In a restaurant environment, sometimes another person orders for him.
He has proper hearing aids - I'm not sure of the specific brand. They can be controlled via an app (and bluetooth). He's got a clip on microphone that goes directly to the hearing aids which sometimes goes on the table if he remembers to bring it so that we can talk to it and it does a better job... it's also used when he and my mother are out cycling and my mother wears it clipped to her shirt so that he can hear what she says.
One of the features that the app can control is the "environment". When out and about it's set to omnidirectional so that someone next to him doesn't need to be talking directly to him, however that picks up a lot of background and when in a building that causes.
He's also wired up their house with an audio loop. There's a microphone at my mother's craft desk that goes directly to the hearing loop and he can hear it anywhere in the main rooms of the house.
However, going out to places where he needs to be able to talk to people with less assistive technology available, things like the dictation mode on the phone area used. Also, sometimes he'll miss words (the start of a sentence until he realizes someone is talking to him, turns his head and the directional hearing aid mode gets them in focus). Being able to review the last 15 seconds of what was said on his iWatch would a technology that he would use.
As someone whose hearing has been degrading fast, this sounds like a feature that would be immensely useful. At some point you get tired of asking everyone to repeat themselves and start guessing by context (you've probably seen an old family member do this).
And even if it weren't super weird and creepy, it's 15 seconds, right? So what, that waitress rolledup, read the menu for less than 10 seconds, and then zoomed away, giving you a couple of seconds to get to and run the replay?
I've definitely had situations where I zoned out for a few seconds during a meeting or seminar, and want to see what was just spoken. That seems like a much stronger use case where you wouldn't want to interrupt the whole room to ask what was just spoken.
That doesn't seem to be a use case that I would use - now assuming someone is still speaking, you look at your watch (just bad form to me) you will very likely miss what is being talked about while reading what you previously missed. At least my one channel brain would.
This happens to me too and I enable 'Live Captions' (not meeting transcriptions) so that I always have a scroll back in case I miss something.
It's built into the meeting software I use and probably in most mainstream ones.
I tried OS transcription but those don't split out who's talking (since it's a single audio stream) so much less useful.
Anyways all that to say that at least in online meetings this problem is solved and addressing this problem in a stack that doesn't have meeting context is going to result in a worse experience.
That's how you know no one in charge has a real life, they're all so disconnected from the reality of the bottom 90% that they think this is how we live.
Same with the "airpod live translation" thing, they probably spent more time implementing/testing it than the feature has been used in real life
Man I love live translation. I was traveling in the Middle East and went to see a movie and… it worked. My Spanish is mid, my Italian is barely there, my Arabic is near zero.
It’s hard for me to imagine not wanting language barriers to disappear.
The demo of the woman at the train station listening to a concert promoter in Spanish, taking a flyer, saying “thank you” in English and walking away came off as quite geocentric.
Did you mean to use another word here? I mean, the vast majority of people are still on Earth so many things are geocentric and that's rarely considered a problem.
Stopping to listen to someone is not very egocentric. Without the headphones (in the scenario) she would have just ignored him or politely declined the flyer.
Why is it off putting? Someone could be using a phone or a concealed omnidirectional microphone for this and you wouldn't know. You never know who's recording you anyway.
If I learned that someone I've been speaking to for a while was recording the conversation using the audio recorder app on their phone, I'd find that extremely creepy.
In the video, the waitress said something, then the guy looked up on his watch what she said. Where's the part where he enables anything? Clearly it was already listening, otherwise it wouldn't have caught what she said.
My hope is it’s off by default and most people choose to keep it that way.
This featuring is undoubtedly to compete with, and crush, all of those stand-alone AI wearables that do the same thing. All those products failed, because people either didn’t find it that useful, or the creep factor was too high.
I could see some scenarios where it might be useful. Being at a conference, for example, and having a summary of everything I heard in the various presentations. But at the same time, it feels like the people being recorded should have knowledge of, and give consent to, the recording.
What sucks is that if you've ever pushed back on the people that use those stupid AI recorders they'll insist they're not actually recording you, its just a transcript and summary, and somehow that's fine. I'm not looking forward to more people explaining that to me, especially hardcore Apple fans.
Yeah, I had this happen last time I went to the doctor… one of the last places I’d want it.
At least with the Apple one they talked about how it works and it’s not some random product off Amazon doing god knows what.
My dad is probably the most likely person in my life to use something like this. I could see him sending me the summary of our dinner conversation or something, which would be very weird and off-putting. He has been very concerned about his memory as he ages, so I could see him using something like this to help with age related memory issues.
The doctor is probably the best place for this technology so that you can actually talk to your doctor rather than your doctor half-paying attention while they try to input everything into their EMR system on the computer.
Wife is a nurse. They trialed this out where she works and it was seriously a horrible experience. She ended up spending more time fixing the output then just taking her short hand notes.
This is what I’m worried about. Not so much the time fixing it, as the “well, that’s good enough” even though it might have issue. Over time, those small errors that may have seemed trivial at the time could become more serious issues.
They're already doing that on reddit. Fanboyism is so dangerous. No one should be that emotionally invested in a corporation, it lets them get away with anything.
I think they gave us enough information to understand their legal strategy. They will argue that the watch has sufficient processing power to transcribe the text in real time, and a plain text transcript is not a recording.
It likely stretches the definitions compared to what most people who do not want to be recorded think the laws should prevent, but on the other hand at least it couldn’t be used as legal evidence. It sounds intended as a memory aid, where passing a transcript for gossip purposes will hopefully be met with automatic skepticism as something that isn’t authenticated in any way and could be made up entirely.
They probably spent enormous amounts of time weighing how much legal jeopardy it would create for their customers.
I can’t tell how California law treats e.g. hitting the little microphone icon on the iPhone with the notes app open (realtime live transcription w/no recording that I know of) versus the voice memo app (illegal without all-party consent, as it creates a recording).
The world’s fastest smartphone typist can do what the mic icon does. In, say, court, “look I typed this” & “look this was dictated” would seem to be just as trustworthy since either can be edited after the fact. And someone could type and say it was transcribed, or transcribe and say it was typed. Whereas the law doesn’t want us voice recording and having the actual (forensically provable? w/the right budget?) record, unless everyone agreed.
No, that part requires intent, where you have to turn it on with the button. It was in the demo.
Regardless, you'll be mortified if you search the app store for software or Amazon for hardware devices that do this! You can still pick up voice recorders at Staples, actually (I was surprised to see they still sell them, and they have weeks of recording time now, along with transcription software).
> Siri Recap runs only when you choose. You can turn on Siri Recap in the Watch app on iPhone. When you turn it on, you can set a schedule based on time and/or location (for example, "only at work" or "never at night"), or you can manually turn it on and off. Across all these options, you can always turn it on or off at any time from Control Center.
> Siri Recap and Live Rewind help jog your memory, not provide a detailed record. Siri Recap doesn't produce a transcript. It generates a brief, high-level summary — comparable to notes you might jot down after a conversation. Live Rewind shows a text snippet of what was just said in the last 15 seconds, so you can catch something you missed.
It really depends on what you consider a recording. If audio is streamed though a transcription engine and never saved in a way that could be replayed, it's hard to argue that a recording has been made. The live audio was transcribed.
While I still do trust that on-device audio is safe, you can rewind and record it on another device.
The regulatory workaround is an "un-mutable" audio notification of some sort. This might be a very notable sound in the near future. I am curious what the chosen waveform might be:
The 2 party state thing is for phone calls. Outside of phone calls, you are generally allowed to record anything you can legally hear, same as you can photograph anything you can legally see.
>Outside of phone calls, you are generally allowed to record anything you can legally hear
I am not a lawyer but I do not believe that is true in any state except Nevada. Two-party consent almost always includes in person conversations. California Code, Penal Code 632:
>A person who, intentionally and without the consent of all parties to a confidential communication, uses an electronic amplifying or recording device to eavesdrop upon or record the confidential communication, whether the communication is carried on among the parties in the presence of one another or by means of a telegraph, telephone, or other device, except a radio, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500) per violation, or imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year
As far as I can tell in 2 party states, it depends on the expectation of privacy, and even in public, your intent. In any case, here is their threading of the needle:
There's some more details on privacy at the bottom of the page:
> Audio Intelligence features are private by design
> a dedicated hardware-isolated compartment that processes audio in complete isolation from the rest of the system, then immediately deletes it
> Users are in control and [...] can decide exactly where and when Siri Recap takes notes, and can turn Siri Recap on or off at any time
> Siri Recap produces a brief, high-level summary of conversations — not a transcript — and is designed to exclude sensitive information like financial information or government-assigned identifiers
Yeah, even more weird was when they highlighted the privacy aspect of it. Sure, it maintains the wearer's privacy, just not that of anyone around them.
In what way does this violate the privacy of anyone around them? It doesn't even store audio recordings, which is something every smartphone has been able to do for 20 years.
15 seconds at a time, when the owner activates the feature. The scale of its recall is not meaningfully different than someone scribbling down 15 seconds worth of what they hear someone say (or even just remembering it), and does not pose a greater privacy risk than a scratchpad or human memory.
It’s also much less effective at recording people speaking for long durations than the audio recording feature that every smartphone for the last 20 years has supported.
This thread is so fascinating, I had no idea that because I'm comfortable having an intimate conversation with a friend means I'm also okay with a potentially permanent AI summary being generated based on it, and without my knowledge or consent!
Tell us everything, what happens on tour stays on tour - sure. Just approve that your data is - of course - anonymously used to train AI and regarding intelligence agencies or AI Acts: well, it is not us, it is them. Law is law, you know. We won't tell you anyway.
There is no privacy left. And to be honest, people worshipping their phones all day but complaining about privacy is the biggest WTF I have. This doesn't match.
Also I am a Mathematician and know statistics very well. The person, who is not on Facebook, but on WhatsApp, who works at X and lives in Y - we got you my friend.
You moved away? No problem! Someone photographed you casually, you weren't even the main character, we ignored you, and send it in a group chat you know nothing about. Well, we know all the others and can relate to anyway. And then? Well AI can very well predict you aging - easy. We have you already. Sleep well and dream of being unknown. Because... How do you know what you don't know?
I gave up on privacy because there is none anymore. Selling and publication of your data is a whole different story. And that's what Apple means by circumventing the rest.
I think if someone followed me and my friend around and kept a transcript and summary of every conversation between and around us in a little notebook, I would have a basis to say my privacy was being violated, right?
Apple Watch doesn't maintain a transcript of every conversation. The user has to take action, and then it only goes back 15 seconds.
If someone is following you around within earshot and fiddling with... a notepad and pencil or a watch or a phone or a tape recorder, then yes, you have reason to be upset. I agree.
The ability of the Apple Watch to do what has always been possible doesn't materially change your privacy. [1]
Fundamentally, this is an accessibility feature, and Apple -- and other vendors -- have already shipped several similar ones. Were you equally upset by those too? AirProds already 'record' all audio around them! They can even be used as listening devices! https://support.apple.com/en-au/102479
This reminds me of parents getting hysterical when someone pulls out a DSLR at a kid's soccer game, while standing next to half a dozen parents who are all taking pictures with the phones and immediately uploading them to Meta.
[1] There are valid arguments to be made that this will be normalised and cloned... badly by Chinese and South Korean vendors without the privacy safeguards, at which point it is "too late" to put the genie back in the bottle.
Why does the 15 seconds matter? My conversations with friends would be vastly different if I knew at any second they could push a button and get a transcript of what we just said. I'd pretty much never make a joke again.
Now imagine knowing that they'll go home and be able to see a nice summary of the various conversations throughout the night. Just very normal social behavior, made easy by Apple.
Sorry, you're right about the transcript, it's the summary that's generated that's still off putting.
And I don't think we can compare this to weirdos being able to record other people, this is about when my friends come over and I have to wonder if they think it's normal to have running since "it's technically not recording" or "the summary is anonymized. It's normalizing behavior that's just a little weird, like people who use those ai recorders. I fail to see how that's not a violation of my privacy in some way.
Also you don't need to point out stupid gatchas about airpods, don't be an ass.
So—speaking to the general “you” here—not you, @jiggawatts, personally (I’m sure we’re both lovely, and I chose to respond here only because you seem to capture the prevailing opinion simply, thoughtfully, and reasonably)—
I respect that you believe that. I do not. It touches up against my basic relationship to reality and existence. To me, there’s a difference between a person and a machine. And between a meeting-of-the-minds-in-the-moment and an archival record.
To me, even the act of processing me through something-other-than-your-human-mind feels violative—essentializing and reductive. For me it’s wrapped up in ideas about attachment, and illusions of permanence, and attention and presence and the extra ineffable elements of human contact that unfold at levels other than the words and an exchange being about much more than the “information content.”
You don’t have to agree with me, but it’s frustrating for my conversation partner to take what I bring to a conversation while demanding to also take more than I’m willing to offer.
You’re free to allow people to record you, or analyze you, or machine-summarize you, or livestream you for the judgment and entertainment of the internet-dwelling masses, or whatever you’d like.
And I’m free to say: do not record me. Ever. Even on a rolling buffer, even “just for note-taking.” Even if it “only lives” some specific digital place. Unless I specifically say it’s OK, ahead of time; and we agree on how specifically the processed-me-byproduct will be used.
I’m not unreasonable! Sometimes the answer is yes! Is it for accessibility? Of course, go for it! Thank you for asking. Do we want to make a statement for the record? Great! But ask.
Funnily enough the “soul sucked out” trope occurred to me too, but it seems like we take different lessons from it. For me, it cues stories about a bunch of economically powerful people inserting themselves into places and situations where other people lived. Using their new camera technology to exploit those people’s images and likenesses, and justifying it by rolling their eyes together at how superstitious and backward and dumb those people were for not liking it. As if it were impossible for somebody to understand the thing and still not want it used on them.
And thus figuring their superiority gave them permission to “educate” the people whose likenesses they sought to exploit. And if the subjects still didn’t like it, it must be their shortcoming (since all right-thinking people obviously agree about matters of the soul and of cameras).
So it was OK to disregard their subjects’ beliefs, and their subjects’ dignity. The camera-pushers were entitled, by dint of their superior certainty, to treat people like specimens.
I agree there’s a parallel, but I think the people who were in the wrong were the people forcing the cameras on people who didn’t want to be involved.
[ETA, for @cindyllm: Your provocations are sublime, and I'm grateful that you continue to confound those of us who walk with the dead. You keep me off balance like nobody else. Is that your LinkedIn, or would I be spamming a random Canadian person?]
While I instinctively dislike any "secretly spying" devices, phones could do that for a while now. I wouldn’t have much use for my watch doing it, but my nephew swears by taking notes on an ipad with an app that has a sort of a playback: essentially a play bar that recreates the note as it is written, with audio included. Being able to playback the lecture afterwards that way is a huge benefit over pure notes and I wish I had something like that when I was in school.
Friction makes all the difference. Google used to sweat over 100ms in page loading.
Running a voice memory all day long is one thing. Pressing a button that automatically summarizes every conversation you'll ever have is a step change.
There's a difference between "weird people could choose to do this creepy thing and violate my trust" and "not weird people could forget to turn off this slightly less creepy thing and still violate my trust" Both of these suck, but honestly I don't appreciate that Apple is making me feel uneasy talking around my friends with Apple Watches. Not because I don't trust my friends, but because now it takes extra work for them to not do something kinda creepy.
Jfc the tedium on this site. Sure, no one makes me feel anything, you're technically right buddy.
I don't appreciate Apple normalizing the already creepy ai note takers that exist and increasing the odds that someone will use them in casual or intimate conversations.
> It's made even worse by the fact that [...] their external designs are unchanged from past ones, so there's no way to tell who's always listening to everything
Yeah, I just decided the entire Apple Watch brand is suddenly a creeper device, so I'm not going to wear mine out, nor otherwise around other people.
I don't want to endorse creeper devices by appearing to wear one, and I don't want to be insensitive to people who might wonder whether I'm "note taking" everything we say.
Also, I got an iPhone specifically to use the Apple Watch awhile, so I'm probably switching back to GrapheneOS sooner than expected.
I just assume everything in public is audio/video recorded. In most places that's perfectly legal (with some exceptions). I don't think people should expect privacy in public. We faced the same panic about photographs when mobile phones started getting cameras. With some notable problems, everyone accepted it and moved on. The utility we get from cameras in phones is worth far more than the privacy violations which occur. The same thing is going to happen with this technology (and smart glasses).
I don't believe it. Photography was invented by non-Big Tech, and was widely popular and useful before Big Tech adopted it.
Miniature cameras on your body, and summaries of every conversation you have which you can store permanently, are concepts from either spy movies or weird sci-fi. I think it's a big mistake to see this as a continuation and not as a very different trend.
We may have to accept that Big Tech people are weird and cannot be trusted with any of this. See the Valley people now feeding all their personal conversations to agents. They are creepy and they are creating products in their own image.
> I don't believe it. Photography was invented by non-Big Tech, and was widely popular and useful before Big Tech adopted it.
Cameras were invented before big tech. Big tech took cameras and made them better and more ubiquitous. Microphones were invented before big tech. Big tech is taking them and making them better and more ubiquitous.
To be clear, I agree that the leaders of these companies are weird and untrustworthy. I'm arguing that the utility they will offer the world is worth far more to most people than the privacy concerns. Because of this, most people will happily adopt this technology.
It's the first iteration of what will eventually be an on-device Siri/openclaw that not only has full access to your messages/docs/emails/life, but also has live audio access to what's going on around you.
Remember, this is all running via local models on-device.
This is how Siri/openclaw can hear you make plans for lunch, then add it to the calendar before you open your phone.
Yeah very creepy, I'm afraid it'll be normalised in a few years, together with the cameras in our glasses.
I always knew this was coming eventually, with storage and compute getting so cheap, eventually every record can and then will be saved for security / convenience reasons. Every word uttered, every emotion shown on your face, every URL visited, every view you laid your eyes on.
I will miss the days that things could happen and be forgotten.
No doubt this stuff is all very useful, but I'd rather we skip this line of technology.
It will make me as wary as I am around people that wear those little AI notetaker/recorders, so, very. At least with those it's a single use device that you can spot, now any Apple Watch could be listening, fun!
I don't know if this will be the common reaction, but after seeing this I've made a mental note to not discuss anything private with anyone wearing an Apple Watch. Makes me suspicious of iPhones, too, after years of defending them and saying that 'technology is always listening' is a silly conspiracy
“Always listening” in the way people have been conspiratorially claiming your phone is listening to show you ads is silly.
Always listening in that the owner could run an application that could be recording them and you on the other hand has been a possibility since pretty much day one.
You would be aghast to spend any time in tech these days. I would wager more than 20% of the people in this field right now are wearing devices which record everything they say in every conversation and ship it directly to a transcription LLM and into some other tools. Go to SV and I bet this number jumps to nearer to 30-40%
“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. This is because the S11 chip on Apple Watch Series 12 includes Secure Exclave, a dedicated hardware-isolated compartment that processes audio in complete isolation from the rest of the system, then immediately deletes it.”
People love to get worked up over technology that is actually private and secure.
Meanwhile they’ll use Google and Facebook without a second thought.
How is this different from a privacy standpoint of someone simply memorising what you said in the last fifteen seconds and scribbling it down onto a piece of paper?
You’re sounding… hysterical.
Even if you regularly say things that must never be tied back to you, like.. you are in the mafia or you’re an actual spy or whatever, and every single person around you has this on their wrist listening to every word you say all of the time…
Nothing changes for you.
The users of the watches still have to take action to use the audio, which they too would have heard anyway, and could have transcribed and texted to someone or written down.
Oh… wait… are you MIB? Are you concerned that your memory eraser wand won’t wipe Apple Watch recordings of the last 15 seconds, allowing the public to finally know about aliens amongst us?
I know that sounds silly, but unless you can erase the memories stored in human brains, then you must realise that everything you say in the presence of meat computers with audio listening devices attached (ears) can be recorded (memorised).
> How is this different from a privacy standpoint of someone simply memorising what you said in the last fifteen seconds and scribbling it down onto a piece of paper?
I would hope to not be friends with such a fucking weird person tbh. But I guess if it's automated into a sexy device it's fine.
This isn’t on all the time. It’s on in 15 second increments and clearly chimes when enabled. This is literally just the equivalent of saying “one sec while I get a pen to write this down” and then taking a note.
>How is this different from a privacy standpoint of someone simply memorising what you said in the last fifteen seconds and scribbling it down onto a piece of paper?
The difference is extremely obvious, to the point that you even typed out one of the differences!
I mean it's nonsense, apple can update the "secure exclave" software at any time to exfiltrate the audio if they want or get ordered to.
If you read that quote carefully you'll also notice it's only the audio that's ever mentioned as inaccessible to apple etc but never mentions anything about the actual transcript, wanna bet that goes into their little advertisement venture?
There is no transcript - you make claims about what Apple “never mentions “ but they do - in great detail:
“Audio from the microphone enters the Secure Exclave of Apple Watch, where it is
initially processed for speech, sounds, or music, without transcribing or storing
the raw audio. This buffer is a continuously overwritten stream that exists only
within the protected hardware and never creates an audio recording”
You just ignored the previous point. You linked to the audio never getting recorded or leaving the device. The previous post said the transcription of that audio leave that part of the device. They must, otherwise they could not be displayed and saved.
I think the times someone has something to say that is so sensitive they don't want a record of any kind kept, are rare unless you are a clandestine agent or military - and it's probably worth just asking those in literal earshot "Hey, I need to tell you something off the record, please make sure to turn off any AI transcription or similar."
IDK about you but most of the shit I say, I'd be happy for the hearer's assistant to be listening and potentially adding the things we agreed on to their to-do lists or calendars.
hmm. You talk to your coworker about some juicy gossip in cafe next to me. I have to put lead in my ears? and who cares about people with different languages, hearing difficulties etc etc...
FTA: “Apple Watch Series 12 now offers the most accurate step tracking of any smartwatch.12 The S11 chip also enables the brand-new Steps complication, so users can track their steps in real time, right from their watch face”
That must mean they’re very confident about the accuracy. I look forward to reviewers trying to beat their detection model.
Apple Watch is hitting diminishing returns feature-wise. I'm happy with my Series 11 but "it has more accurate heart sensors" isn't really revolutionary, and I believe some of the Apple Intelligence features will be backported anyways.
With fast charging, battery life hasn't been an issue; I just put it on the charger while in the shower and that does the trick.
Having had an Apple Watch since the Series 0, I think Apple wants people to have a ~3-year upgrade cycle. They essentially update the internals one year, the next they come out with some interesting software features, then the next year they do some external design tweaks. Then they repeat.
There is no reason to upgrade every year, or even every two. It is around the 3-year mark where there tends to be enough new features or your battery life is getting bad enough that there is reason to check out the new watches. Even then my mom uses a Series 6 and is very happy with it and actually uses it a fair bit.
I dunno. Maybe there's a sense in which there's some untapped use cases out there that Apple needs to go figure out. But in a different sense, the idea that I buy a watch that lasts for years and I don't feel like I'm missing out in the meantime...sounds fine?
I got my first Apple Watch a year and a half ago. After coming to terms with the fact that the form factor has fundamental limitations, it's faded into the background and has been an excellent watch, fitness tracker, and occasional remote control and messaging device. I'm kinda glad that series 11 and 12 haven't given me fomo!
(I do wish they made more good watch faces though...)
> With fast charging, battery life hasn't been an issue
I sold my 10 last year and haven’t missed it. You don’t have reasonable access to a charger during a marathon or a long hike, the latter of which needed me to charge my Apple Watch 3 times over the course of 12 hours of hiking.
I regularly do long races like marathons and 20 mile trail races and have never had to charge my watch during those events and I am often even streaming music/podcasts from the watch. With an Ultra you should be able to easily do a 12 hour hike.
Marathons and 20 mile trail races are not remotely long. A thru hiking day is usually about as long as the available daylight hours, so 16 hours in summer. A 100K race typically falls in the 10 to 20 hour range, depending on the terrain and the personal fitness. A 100 miler is usually over 30 hours for sub elites. An entry level Coros watch can handle all of these, there is no need to bring up premium priced Garmins, and certainly not much justification for the Apple Watch Ultra.
I'm very close to selling my S10. I barely use it. All the features are sort of nice to have. The only one I really care about is heart rate monitoring during exercise and the AirPods Pro 3 do that.
Meanwhile Coros Pace 4, a 200 dollar watch, has 40 hours of GPS tracking and offline map. I simply can not understand the pricing strategy of Apple. Do they really expect people who are serious about endurance sports and training to get their ridiculously expensive Ultra? Or they are just fine with Garmin taking the biggest chunk of this market?
The Garmin Forerunner 970 is only $50 cheaper than the Ultra. Then, the Garmin Fenix 9 is more expensive than the Ultra and doesn't have cellular and charges significantly extra for the satellite connectivity.
My Fenix 7 has ~12 days of life, while using it every day for fitness tracking, maps, the occasional LED flashlight, etc. It also is at least IME much more of a beast than an (admittedly older gen) Ultra. I charge before I leave, then spend a week or more living out of backpack and sleeping on the ground. I very much want to go back to Apple Watch but Garmin battery life and durability is just so much better for my use case.
Few people spend a week or more living out of a backpack. The ultra 4 is rated to do 84 hours in low power mode and 45 in workout mode. Few people are going to max that out and those people probably aren’t interested in an Apple Watch and have other priorities.
Funny this was downvoted: I was thinking the same as I was reading this thread.
True mass market means optimizing your product for the fat part of the population bell curve. This is some point or region in a space of { cost, features, use cases, durability }. The Apple Watch works for everyone from a stay at home parent, stocker at the supermarket, executive, and so on. If you work in a machine shop or spend a few hours every day working out it may not be for you.
There’s a marginal but valuable exception: think of prosumer cameras. There are indeed pros, and the feature set is good enough for some of them to shoot with a prosumer camera (any actual pro can shoot better photos with an instamatic than I can with a phone, much less an SLR). But most people buy the high end aspirationally. Why not? That penumbra pulls more people in who really need the plain old features.
And anyway once you really are at the high end your needs can be idiosyncratic.
Well no, they made the Ultra for very rich people who do long hikes or similar. For most of us, a smart watch isn't so important that the increase in price is worth it, even if we're annoyed by the battery life of the non-Ultra watch which is too poor for any kind of day-long activity.
No one that does this with any regularity or seriousness uses an Apple Watch, they go with Garmin or one of the real fitness watches that can claim battery life in weeks and even months. My Fenix 8 charges once every 26-29 days. I left Apple Watch and never looked back. It's just an inferior product in every possible way.
Guess it depends. I do trail races (usually 25k and 20-milers) and marathons regularly, and Apple Watch has worked just fine for me and has a lot of other features that I use regularly that are largely not available on Garmin. I also prefer the map app I use on my Apple Watch compared to what my partner uses on his Garmin.
Did a long bike ride recently and just used my iPhone to track the workout. Probably suboptimal, since it doesn't have all the heart rate stuff, but it gets the big picture (elevation gain, speed, distance).
Mine got slow with the latest update. I stopped wearing it mostly and I don’t think I will get another smart watch. I’m more tempted by those screen less fitness tracker pucks.
The Apple Watch is just too expensive for something that goes obsolete far faster than a normal watch. The watches I owned before the Apple Watch 6 are still in perfect condition and as good as the day I got them while the AW is bordering on ewaste.
And the Ultra series have been marginally incremental, emphasis on marginally. They announced that Ultra series 1 software support is ending this year, but I just cannot justify buying another one of these at $800.
I mean, there's only so much that a watch can do or that can be packed into it. Eventually all gadget categories fall into a lull of slow and steady progress, they can't all be absolute bangers year after year
On what legal footing does this recap feature stand? In fairly certain there are a non-zero amount of laws prohibiting audio recording without consent. And this wrist mounted always listening thing is likely to end up in a lot of places it should not. Probably burried in the end user agreement that it is 100% the users fault.
Instant in-memory transcription likely isn't legally considered the same as storing the actual audio. It probably couldn't be used as proof in a court like audio could (for now...).
Aren't you just confused about this whole situation? You do know that the human the watch is attached to has ears right? Which record and store the information?
You have no expectation of privacy next to another human in public places.
Human memory is well known to be unreliable. There’s a clear difference with “he said, she said” type recollections and what Apple is doing. People forget things and they get things wrong.
There may indeed be no expectation of privacy in public but this still really creepy and slightly threatening.
It’s always listening and allows you to go back without pressing record before hand.
Now you have a potential written record of every off colour remark, joke and personal discussion you over hear.
Maybe you think the world would be better if we all watch what we say in public further, I don’t.
IANAL but my guess is that they're leaning heavily into the fact that the feature just generates transcripts and does not persist any audio recordings.
Yes, many states in the U.S. have recording laws that prohibit only one party giving consent to record. Aka: I give consent but the other party may not in which case it could be illegal.
It's entirely different. One is fingerprinting ambient audio against a corpus of known signatures to identify music, another is basically silently monitoring and summarizing every conversation it hears for later review.
I don't feel like my privacy is being invaded by a date's phone telling them what song was playing at the restaurant, but I would be disturbed if their phone produced a summary of our conversation, especially if any vulnerable topics came up.
I feel like I'd also be a little weirded out to find my date referencing the summary or transcript later, maybe that's just me. Like if I said something personal and they whipped out a notebook and wrote it down real fast, that's unnerving.
The Android feature is matching songs it hears to an on-device database of fingerprints, the other is recording, transcribing, and summarizing all conversations around it. Seems a little different.
Counterintutively, that didn't work out well for me. When the watch has ample power to make it through one day, but not two, I just put it on my schedule of daily rituals. Usually just throw it on the charger while I take a shower. But when the battery life is measured in weeks, I don't build any sort of habit like that and I end up finding out about it the hard way. My ideal watch never runs out in a single day and charges fast enough that during my shower it will get me through the next day. Based on the stats of the Series 12, it would probably fit the bill.
Just continue to charge your Garmin when you take a shower. I don’t understand why you need to change your habits. Are you worried about making the battery full at longer durations causing degradation? A smartwatch is fundamentally a disposable piece of electronics that last a few years.
The garmin has so much battery life that when it's at 10% and starts complaining that the battery is close to dying I still have about 2 days to remember to charge it.
And obviously you don't get penalised for charging it more often. Just charge it every Sunday if routine is a big issue.
I am currently using both an apple watch SE 2 and a garmin vivoactive 5 simultaneously. Even if the Garmin has better battery life, I don't really like it for 2 reasons:
- the round watch UI is ugly and doesn't work with the other UI elements. Also I don't mind using a squared watch, I like it. My Casio is also square-ish.
- the UX is terrible, the customization is terrible. The default watch faces are all quite ugly, and the Garmin app makes the customization experience even worse.
Also, I feel like the sleep is more accurate on the Apple watch than on the Garmin from a couple episodes that happened and in general from the differences in tracking time.
Also, as you already said, I just charge the watch everyday while I shower, so battery life is not really an issue for 80% of the time. For the other 20% it's really annoying... but I think a newer model (and I hope that the new ones will be even better on that side) will have better battery life. When the battery life will be ~48 hours it will be perfect for me.
I just wish Garmin would get their act together with filtering notifications on iOS. No, I'm sorry, not every app on my phone should be important enough to buzz my wrist. Filtering works fine for Garmin on Android, and apparently for other watch brands on iOS (Coros, Pebble, etc).
The sad thing is all I really need is app-level granularity (slack, you're banned from my wrist!).
If this isn't fixed by the time my 5 year old Fenix fails, I'll move to a different brand that enables filtering.
From what I’ve heard, this is actually a problem with the exposed OS level api’s provided by Apple. Other manufacturers have solved this with on device workarounds. Doesn’t make it better though. I resorted to only the system only notifications (Phone, Texts).
As an end user, all I really care about is that the watch doesn't buzz every single time my long-winded colleague hits <enter> on slack, but that I do see slack notifications when I'm able to look at my phone. And I always want to see my wife's texts on my wrist...
Whether that filtering is in the app, in the OS, or on the watch is not important to me.
I think the way to do this is in iOS itself. I would be shocked if Coros has better notifications tech than Garmin; it’s a way smaller company. I don’t even remember touching notifications when I set up my Coros watch. I think it is just governed by my iOS settings.
iOS has a lot of power to finely control notifications. For example for Slack I just have app badges, while iMessage buzzes. In Mail, only people I’ve added to a small “VIP” list cause a buzz. Otherwise I just look at the Mail app badge to see how many emails have come in.
It takes time to tune it, but it is a very good investment IMO.
I was on the Ultra for 18 months or so and came away from it feeling like a much less powerful and capable Garmin is much nicer as a daily watch. I found myself wanting to find reasons/excuses to justify the Ultra. Ultimately I couldn't, and it wasn't worth its cost, charging schedule, and lack of battery life.
I can see why others like them (they want WatchOS and Apple-specific capabilities). That stuff is useful, but not often enough for me to care.
Really, the watch was a regular reminder of how functional life was before the watch existed, if that makes sense. It's a genuine marvel, and yet... I got by (and get by) great without it.
I think a large percentage of your problem might be that you bought the most expensive model. Was the Ultra really the one to get?
It’s the thickest and heaviest, for one thing.
There’s a decent argument for the SE as the best Apple Watch for most people because it’s cheap and it does most of the things that regular people want out of a smartwatch.
As I recall, I went with it because it supported the best dive features. I used it for that quite a bit for a while, but eventually realized my basic cheap dive watch worked fine, could take a beating, and was actually better rated for deeper dives. Having physical buttons is a huge advantage over the Ultra. The dial was never enough to get the control I wanted, even if the UI only required it.
I was recently looking for a new running watch but couldn't for the life of me figure out what Garmin's higher end watches do to justify being over $1000. Like, ok, better battery life... but besides that?
For workout tracking depending on your sport the Garmin is way better- for swimming the lap counter and for hiking the trail maps on Garmin gets more granular and better for tracking. For skiing the altitude tracking and vertical distance is better on the Garmin.
For phone, calendar and work integration the apple watch is better (I have it hooked up to take calls from the watch) so I ultimately went with the apple watch even though my triathlon training tracking was better on the Garmin!
In one social group I am part of, Garmin just became the new trend. Watches have historically been status symbols even more than they are functional. Someone drops a few hundred/thousand/whatever and then brags about the newest new and how they are on it, then others move over to keep up.
People often buy these kinds of discretionary toys with their hearts and do post-hoc rationalization with their minds. You can't figure it out because your heart hasn't brought you there so your brain isn't wasting time creating justifications.
For what it is worth, sometimes these trends die an early death when people realize there is no substance underneath the justification. At least in the Garmin case, most people I know are happy with the purchase, in that it does deliver on certain needs. Since it matches their expectations, they don't have to suffer any cognitive dissonance between the heart-to-brain justification and their lived experience.
> Maybe less powerful but battery life is the most important feature for me.
I've been using Garmin watches for years, wife always had Apple Watches. This year she got envious enough of the battery life that she also switched to Garmin now. Her watches sometimes barely lasted a day, requiring daily charges. Meanwhile, you get a week of battery easily with most Garmins.
"Apple Watch Series 12 continues to offer up to 24 hours of everyday battery life and now offers up to 10 hours of battery life during an outdoor workout — 25 percent more than the previous model.
Apple Watch Series 12 also offers faster charging: Just 15 minutes now gets up to 12 hours of additional battery life — 50 percent more than the previous model — so users can quickly recharge while getting ready for the day or before bed."
I had one of the first really cheap Xiaomi Smart Watches for 6 years and by the end a single charge lasted 2 weeks. Switched to an Apple Watch and 1 year in it lasts a single day, stopped wearing smart watches a few weeks ago, mainly due to this and just the fact that none of them look good imo.
I had an Apple Watch series 7, which I had to charge twice a day now. I was on a fence between buying a new AW or switching to another brand, but Apple dropping the software support for my model have made the choice for me. I
Been using Suunto Run for a year and have been happy. The thing I mostly miss is Apple Pay and Runna compatibility. I usually have my phone with me for the former, and I'll be snagging the Race 3S when it supposedly launches in Oct.
Assuming you’re using the Garmin for fitness related reasons — are you really carrying your phone around with you for music? I guess it works if you bike?
The plot thickens. Frankly even if it did get music right it would be tough to replace streaming my own Plex music library directly on my Apple watch. 100% worth paying for cellular.
The interface is terrible I've never actually remember to use spotify like this on my garmins and I've worn like 4 over the last decade. Maybe if you use it for a week straight it'll be muscle memory, but I only accidentally play music on it.
It can download and sync playlists and you connect bt headphones to it.
Apple killed support for three generations of Apple Watch hardware with its latest OS update: Series 6, Series 7, Series 8, and the original Apple Watch Ultra.
So much for its commitment to the environment, perfectly capable hardware is being sent to the bin.
There's literally no new features on the watch. Adding in AI nonsense.
Am super salty about them killing support for the original Apple Watch Ultra. I, along with many others, bought it on launch day as both an Apple tragic / early adopter and to support what I thought was going to be an exciting new platform.
Instead we barely got a new feature over the 4 years since it launched, and now its been killed (from a software support pov) way ahead of schedule of the vast majority of other Apple devices.
I really just want an Apple version of the new Fitbit Air.
I had an Apple Watch for five years. Battery didn't even last a day.
I realized generally I have my phone or laptop with me all the time anyway, I don't need a watch with weather or app widgets.
So in June I bought the fitbit air and it's great. Battery life lasts about 6-7 days. No distracting screen. MUCH more comfortable to sleep with since it has no buttons and a smaller form factor.
If Apple made their own version of the Air but with Apple Pay I would switch back over in a heartbeat.
I think Apple Watch is a great device for wearing to gym, to sleep, and somewhat during the day + occasional quick text reply maybe, and otherwise forgetting all about it, because the true value lies in what's being collected in the Health app. Stop trying to do things on it imo. Maybe there are a couple of useful things you can do, or if you're a runner, maybe you can leave your phone at home. I don't have these use cases, but it's valuable to me even without them.
My recommendation is: buy the cheapest material one every few years. I only ever had 2 and 5 (upgraded due to always on screen), and am considering to finally upgrade to 12.
I ditched the screen and got a band with health metrics on it. Its tiny and comfy, no screens, only a wakeup buzz in the morning when I'm most able to wake apparently. Battery lasts maybe a week? Been great. Best of all no advertisements pinging me every few hours.
I wouldn't mind this (a ring is another option), but 1) you can disable notifications, which I tend to do and 2) the problem is that all independent experiments keep claiming that almost everything is inaccurate out there, and Apple Watch is one of the few surprisingly accurate ones, as compared to real medical equipment.
> Best of all no advertisements pinging me every few hours.
Skill issue.
The first thing anyone should do when they get a smart watch is disable all notifications. It's so easy to do and it makes the experience so much better. It's completely backwards that notifications are opt out. Sadly, I've never seen anyone change their defaults.
I don't know. Apple marketing has been really effective at this health thing. Whereas, studies of continuous monitoring of eg heart with even better sensors and higher risk populations have shown conclusively no improvement in health outcomes.
Yeah, I only see anecdotal evidence of Apple Watch helping people: individual heavily-promoted stories.
Still, on a personal level, having my health data over time is something I find interesting to collect.
Things like my sleep, gym heartrate (I mostly pay attention to zones rather than specific numbers), sleep heartrate, occasional ECG reading, steps, with added smart scale and EMR data… It does show interesting trends over time.
Maybe it's just a general fatigue from AI, notifications, microphones, and cameras everywhere, but I'm pretty sure my next watch will be something from Germany or Switzerland containing springs and gears.
Moved from my ultra 2, to a simply casio gshock 5601u, could not be happier, I am so sick and tired of all the notifications, stats, blah blah blah following me all over, from my macbook, iphone, that I just don't need it on my watch as well. I just don't care anymore about tracking everything and uploading to strava, or whever, and this comes from someone that, have over 100k km's logged on strava. I know the vast majority of people love it, and I love stats as well, but all the connected devices, is just getting too much, I am activily trying to go more simple, offline, outside of work.
My left wrist had formed an indent where I wore my se3. It was not worn tight, I tried different straps. In 6 months it looks like the tissue underneath has mostly moved away. I can feel my bone when I touch it. My right arm by contrast looks full like a regular arm.
Looked up apple watch indent reddit and I saw much more serious cases after years of use.
I’ve worn a samsung watch for a year it didn’t leave a mark, casio watches, none. Until apple fixes that weird dome shape never wearing one again. That watch is staying in the box it came in.
Edit: There seems to be people promoting other brands in this thread. Just want to make clear I do not recommend the samsung one either. Don’t want to be labelled as such. Just get a regular watch. Wear it when you go outside and take it off when inside. You were never using the mostly inaccurate health data anyway.
This is true of most objects that are constantly worn on your skin - my engineering ring has created a near-permanent indent in my pinky finger. It fades over time when it's not worn. It's an odd thing to hold against a wearable.
The marks will fade but this moves away tissue and I never faced this with any other watch. The dome always pushes in, the strap will further push in when you rotate your wrist especially the sports one.
I don’t hate it but I do believe this should change, I paid a good amount for this and I willingly put it away.
Yes I fell for the collect all data trap. I wore it around 18 hrs at most. Honestly don’t think its worth it. I don’t know what to do with all the data it collects. Doesn’t even have good watch faces to tell the time atleast. Find my phone was useful though.
The only thing I've ever wanted is an apple watch that's thinner than the first one, my wrists are big enough I don't need a chonker. I don't care what time it is anyways
I wish they made it stupid thin. I wear my Whoop everyday, even sleep with it on. I could never do the same with an Apple Watch due to it's size but also due to the notification anxiety.
I have done so with all my devices since ~15 years ago. It's incredibly refreshing. When I see others reacting monkey-style to any notification or vibration from their phone or watch, I secretly smile inside.
I have a $20 smart fitness watch from Amazon which I use for sleep tracking, though it's a pretty capable watch. Much smaller than an Apple Watch and the battery lasts like 10 days on a charge. It connects to Apple Health and puts the heart rate / fitness / steps / sleep data in there.
If it could do the "make my phone beep" feature I'd probably switch to it as my main watch. But of course that's Apple exclusive proprietary :(
I think they really need a separate product that can have no screen or a minimal screen and ditches the need for app compatibility. Just selling the Apple Fitness features without the screen for apps would provide a lot of value and let them play with form factors and lower price points.
I am looking forward to 3rd party testing on most accurate heart rate. Because I have both Series 11 and Google Fitbit Air and the Air is so much better in everything, from accuracy, when to track and display of information.
I just wish they made a band without all the hassle. I don't use my Watch for anything other than Stop watch, Alarm Clock and Health Tracking.
I will try the Audio note taking, although my current Boss constantly lie and deny she have said something I am not sure how useful will this feature be.
It'd be more accurate to make claims compared to the smartwatches listed in the study, than claiming it's the most accurate on the market.
> Participants wore an Apple Watch on one wrist, and a comparative wrist-based device on the other, while using a Polar H10 ECG based chest strap as reference. Wrist assignment was randomized such that Apple Watch was worn on the dominant hand approximately 50% of the time. Wrist-based devices studied included Apple Watch Series 12, Garmin Forerunner 970, Google Pixel Watch 4, Huawei Watch 5, Samsung Galaxy Watch 8, and WHOOP 5. Oura Ring 5 was also worn on an index finger, per the manufacturer's stated best practices3
I have had many fitbits, but for my mom I purchased an Apple watch because it had sleep apnea notifications. I think that's essential for almost everyone.
I can't imagine why google would skip such a critical feature in Health Tracking.
Switched from apple to garmin to coros, not looking back. Coros blows everyone out of the water from a user experience standpoint, and they offer excellent value.
Value for money, simple software not bloated compared to garmin, heart rate is on par with apple watch. They update their old devices with new features I think one of their models just got a software update for global mapping where you would need to pay extra to get a model with that feature from the competition. Devices could be better in terms of design and fit and finish in time they will get there I hope but overall they are doing pretty good stuff.
It’s a more focused sports experience. I genuinely didn’t use the messaging or reminder or calendar features when I had an Apple Watch, so they are just bloat.
Had Apple not made the transcript/rewind feature a top line feature but put it down in an accessibility feature, I wonder if it would have changed the perception. I'm actually surprised they didn't do this as this is how they tend to test features before wider rollout.
As much as I hate to say it, the most accurate GPS in a watch is the new Pixel Watch from Google, and its accuracy comes from uploading the GPS signal to Google to do building-aware post processing using Google’s database of worldwide buildings to solve the multi-path issue, plus DGNSS. Simply having dual frequency isn’t enough when you run on the streets of New York City. With Google’s solution, it can even detect which side of the sidewalk you are on while running.
I’m just not aware of any method that can do this without uploading your data to the cloud.
There's the Japanese approach of deploying a dense cluster of satellites above one geographical area (QZSS), but of course that only works in the areas those satellites are above.
The main reason I stopped using an Apple Watch is the lackluster battery life; in this series Apple claims 10 hours of battery life for outdoor workouts but without an iPhone. How is that realistic? If I’m going out for a hourlong run perhaps I don’t bring my iPhone, but I’m doing a multihour outdoor workout I would surely bring my phone, and certainly the extra Bluetooth communication would decrease battery life. It’s a silly metric.
I was actually quite impressed with the AI note-taking and other features, and I could see myself using them, so I did like that.
With health, I really wish Apple would truly lean into health...go nuts and try to become effectively a super primary care provider. Integrate with blood tracking, automated diagnostics, something much cooler.
The problem with these kind of wearables today is this is just not very actionable. You have this data, and nobody ever really looks at it. "You had a bad night sleep, maybe sleep more." Yeah no kidding. I want it to say: "Hey we noticed this trend, it could be indicative of X, we recommend Y test. Would you like us to send it to you within 2 hours so you can get more data?"
> The problem with these kind of wearables today is this is just not very actionable.
I got the ultra 2 from Costco in the window of time where it still had the active o2 sensor.
It told me I probably had sleep apnea and to bring a print out of its chart to my primary care physician. That became a referral to an ENT and that became a referral for a sleep study. Turns out I had sleep apnea.
What was really surprising to me -- I was the first person both my primary doctor and the ENT saw who showed up with "my apple watch said I might have sleep apnea."
I've had a CPAP for about 10 months now and it's dramatically improved my sleep.
There are legal prohibitions against one-sided recording in some states (for example, mine).
Am I liable if my watch starts doing this? Or is Apple if it does this by default without even my consent?
I have no idea if the law cares about the privacy features Apple mentioned (no accessible audio, no speaker ID) if the audio was clearly captured at some point.
Funny, because literally every single apple product page gets posted as "news" to HN and every time I see one I think it's just apple marketing astroturfing. Especially since most of the product updates the last few years seem to fall into the, "BUT SHE'S GOT A NEW HAT" territory.
That was my same thought!
Brands I have never heard of that can't make a call, send messages or add a reminder popping up like they invented sliced bread.
We get it, some people don't want to charge a watch even though they have to regularly charge their phone, headphones, laptop and maybe car. Such a weird flex that a watch lasts an extra few days, who cares?! Charge it while you shower and you're good to go
I think it's 2 different end-consumers. Apple targets "watch on my arm", garmin targets fitness tracker that happens to do a few watch things (notifications, payments, some limited messaging).
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
When I saw the part where the guy records the waitress and then re-reading the transcript. FFS just talk to them like a regular human being. If you did this to me I would just be supremely grossed out.
I’m way too unc for this. I’m out. I’m officially done with “tech”.
Every single AW I’ve owned has this weird problem: when I go for a run it often doesn’t show my HR even after 10 mins, sometimes even longer. Super irritating.
Honestly, the killer smartwatch feature for me is being able to quickly click a button to find my iPhone. Everything else I use it for feels like I'm just trying to justify spending hundreds of dollars on it. I record all my workouts and my sleep patterns etc., but I never use that data for anything. I wish I could buy a $10 digital watch that also had a "find my iPhone" button.
Watches are fashion, for most people, rather than a necessity.
That said there are definitely days when I wander out of the house with a watch and no phone. Fewer these days as I use an app on my phone to pay for bus/tram/train fares, but its still nice to be able to do things without the need for a phone.
Anyone know how/why this one can take so many more HRV measurements? I mean the other ones can. What makes this one take more often? Guessing they are just setting it to do more. This is one thing that really annoys me is that it will go 4-6 hours without taking any measurements. When I am sitting down working etc.
I tried Google”s new Fitbit for a couple days but it only does them at night!!
you'd think someone would come up with the technology to use the skin contact as a single lead ECG without requiring a second contact point by the other arm (or leg)
guess that's a generation or two away
suunto has the right idea with their tiny movesense ECG and it's even open-source
Apple needs to move the health data storage, at least optionally, to the home pod/apple tv. My phone is my main interface, but it's not the only interface. And many of the devices that interface with the health app are not mobile. My blood pressure monitor, my bathroom scale. Test results from my doctor. And so on. These should be synced/stored on either my home device and exposed through an app on my phone/desktop/laptop.
> Apple Watch Series 12 continues to offer up to 24 hours of everyday battery life and now offers up to 10 hours of battery life during an outdoor workout — 25 percent more than the previous model.
Are they really bragging about this pathetic performance? The charge in my Pebble lasts 20 days.
How can you sleep with a charge that lasts that short?
Disappointing. Instead of making battery life better that would benefit all of the Apple Watch users, here are some random AI features that most of you never gonna usa, and some new colors.
Even if they’re just matching battery life while adding frequent HRV readings, they’ve made a big advancement. Frequent HRV is a requirement to be a WHOOP/Garmin competitor.
Previous Apple Watch can do it if you tell it you have afib, but that hurts battery life.
FWIW I have told it I have afib. I used to have problems with battery life, but I find the Series 11 can finally last all day and overnight with always on display+afib/HRV monitoring; and it charges fast enough I can get close to 100% in the shower, meaning it effectively does not have battery issues.
I have hearth issues too, and the metrics Apple provides still do not help detecting them. Not to mention that there is no improvement of their high blood pressure detection. So despite the marketing that they have the most accurate sensor, there is no real advancement here.
Relying on an Apple Watch instead of a proper medical device if you're having heart issues is, well, uh... There's a reason an Apple Watch isn't a medical device.
Apple Watch Series 12 continues to offer up to 24 hours of everyday battery life9 and now offers up to 10 hours of battery life during an outdoor workout — 25 percent more than the previous model.10
—
An increase to 10 hours of workout tells me battery life is better, but maybe not “better enough” to give the 24 hour number an increase (or the higher HRV checking frequency is eating the rest of the gains)
No, it’s not. 24 hours is the same as series 11. And you are comparing to series 10, not 11, that already had this improvement.
I do not work out 10 hours a day, so that number is literally meaningless/pointless.
The audio note taking feature is extremely off-putting to me and can't believe it was so prominently showcased.
It's made even worse by the fact that only the newest watches support this, but their external designs are unchanged from past ones, so there's no way to tell who's always listening to everything (I have an Ultra 2, likely my last one).
Is this something most people want?? At the very least I'd appreciate a notification like the unknown airtag thing to tell me I'm being eavesdropped.
The video demo is so strange. A waitress spoke too fast - just act like a normal person and politely ask them to repeat themselves, instead of reading a transcription on your watch. My goodness.
https://youtu.be/Pe2ugye7Ya4?si=qhGPselIm7sZkXyP&t=558 (
My father has hearing aids and in some environments, it doesn't work well (directional vs omnidirectional ... but directional requires the person to directly address him while omnidirectional tends to pick up too much background clutter). In doctors offices (for example) he has handed his phone in dictation mode to the receptionist and asked them to speak to it and then he reads the transcription and responds... and this repeats. In a restaurant environment, sometimes another person orders for him.
This sort of thing could be useful in such cases.
Has he tried these? https://www.fortell.com/
Or are they the directional ones you were referring to?
He has proper hearing aids - I'm not sure of the specific brand. They can be controlled via an app (and bluetooth). He's got a clip on microphone that goes directly to the hearing aids which sometimes goes on the table if he remembers to bring it so that we can talk to it and it does a better job... it's also used when he and my mother are out cycling and my mother wears it clipped to her shirt so that he can hear what she says.
One of the features that the app can control is the "environment". When out and about it's set to omnidirectional so that someone next to him doesn't need to be talking directly to him, however that picks up a lot of background and when in a building that causes.
He's also wired up their house with an audio loop. There's a microphone at my mother's craft desk that goes directly to the hearing loop and he can hear it anywhere in the main rooms of the house.
However, going out to places where he needs to be able to talk to people with less assistive technology available, things like the dictation mode on the phone area used. Also, sometimes he'll miss words (the start of a sentence until he realizes someone is talking to him, turns his head and the directional hearing aid mode gets them in focus). Being able to review the last 15 seconds of what was said on his iWatch would a technology that he would use.
As someone whose hearing has been degrading fast, this sounds like a feature that would be immensely useful. At some point you get tired of asking everyone to repeat themselves and start guessing by context (you've probably seen an old family member do this).
And even if it weren't super weird and creepy, it's 15 seconds, right? So what, that waitress rolledup, read the menu for less than 10 seconds, and then zoomed away, giving you a couple of seconds to get to and run the replay?
I've definitely had situations where I zoned out for a few seconds during a meeting or seminar, and want to see what was just spoken. That seems like a much stronger use case where you wouldn't want to interrupt the whole room to ask what was just spoken.
That doesn't seem to be a use case that I would use - now assuming someone is still speaking, you look at your watch (just bad form to me) you will very likely miss what is being talked about while reading what you previously missed. At least my one channel brain would.
This happens to me too and I enable 'Live Captions' (not meeting transcriptions) so that I always have a scroll back in case I miss something.
It's built into the meeting software I use and probably in most mainstream ones.
I tried OS transcription but those don't split out who's talking (since it's a single audio stream) so much less useful.
Anyways all that to say that at least in online meetings this problem is solved and addressing this problem in a stack that doesn't have meeting context is going to result in a worse experience.
It's gonna make a loud ass chime when you do that, so I don't think that's the use case Apple was imagining.
Is it super weird and creepy if you I tell you I remember the last 15 seconds of what you said?
If I wasn’t talking to you, but you were eavesdropping and taking notes of everything I was saying to another person, yes.
That’s what the wrist computer is doing.
That's how you know no one in charge has a real life, they're all so disconnected from the reality of the bottom 90% that they think this is how we live.
Same with the "airpod live translation" thing, they probably spent more time implementing/testing it than the feature has been used in real life
Man I love live translation. I was traveling in the Middle East and went to see a movie and… it worked. My Spanish is mid, my Italian is barely there, my Arabic is near zero.
It’s hard for me to imagine not wanting language barriers to disappear.
This reminds me of the last time I saw an Arabic movie. It was last week. I used subtitles.
The demo of the woman at the train station listening to a concert promoter in Spanish, taking a flyer, saying “thank you” in English and walking away came off as quite geocentric.
> came off as quite geocentric
Did you mean to use another word here? I mean, the vast majority of people are still on Earth so many things are geocentric and that's rarely considered a problem.
> Did you mean to use another word here?
Hazarding a guess at egocentric considering it's just two characters next to each other swapped, and happens to fit.
I am mortified. I was going for something along the lines of ethnocentric. Thank you :)
Stopping to listen to someone is not very egocentric. Without the headphones (in the scenario) she would have just ignored him or politely declined the flyer.
So either way, wrong word.
They’re making an oblique reference to Pope Urban VIII.
Yeah, they're always leaving the Martians out!
It feels like a made for TV ad for accessibility.
What is a normal person?
It's so funny how the HN crowd is so quick to shout down people who are ableist sometimes, and so quick to BE ableist sometimes.
I kept thinking they were revealing glasses the way they gave a feature list before describing the item in question.
oh man, you have not been keeping up with the anti-social joneses.
Interactiving with people is so pre-covid!
Why is it off putting? Someone could be using a phone or a concealed omnidirectional microphone for this and you wouldn't know. You never know who's recording you anyway.
Apple Watches have had an audio recorder app for years and no-one cares. Sometimes people are just looking for a reason to be offended.
You'd be shocked what the suite of sensors in the smartphone 99% of the population has in their pocket can do.
If I learned that someone I've been speaking to for a while was recording the conversation using the audio recorder app on their phone, I'd find that extremely creepy.
Fair enough. But people here are expressing disdain at this new feature, which is not that.
This is a new feature. It is an always on recording of conversation.
from the video I thought the wearer had to enable it, just as today where the wearer has to enable the audio recorder app.
In the video, the waitress said something, then the guy looked up on his watch what she said. Where's the part where he enables anything? Clearly it was already listening, otherwise it wouldn't have caught what she said.
People have plenty of conversations where if one party intentionally chose to record it, it would be big violation of trust.
This is basically just "always on" recording/transcribing that people have to intentionally remember to turn off, that's a pretty big difference.
My hope is it’s off by default and most people choose to keep it that way.
This featuring is undoubtedly to compete with, and crush, all of those stand-alone AI wearables that do the same thing. All those products failed, because people either didn’t find it that useful, or the creep factor was too high.
I could see some scenarios where it might be useful. Being at a conference, for example, and having a summary of everything I heard in the various presentations. But at the same time, it feels like the people being recorded should have knowledge of, and give consent to, the recording.
What sucks is that if you've ever pushed back on the people that use those stupid AI recorders they'll insist they're not actually recording you, its just a transcript and summary, and somehow that's fine. I'm not looking forward to more people explaining that to me, especially hardcore Apple fans.
Yeah, I had this happen last time I went to the doctor… one of the last places I’d want it.
At least with the Apple one they talked about how it works and it’s not some random product off Amazon doing god knows what.
My dad is probably the most likely person in my life to use something like this. I could see him sending me the summary of our dinner conversation or something, which would be very weird and off-putting. He has been very concerned about his memory as he ages, so I could see him using something like this to help with age related memory issues.
The doctor is probably the best place for this technology so that you can actually talk to your doctor rather than your doctor half-paying attention while they try to input everything into their EMR system on the computer.
Wife is a nurse. They trialed this out where she works and it was seriously a horrible experience. She ended up spending more time fixing the output then just taking her short hand notes.
This is what I’m worried about. Not so much the time fixing it, as the “well, that’s good enough” even though it might have issue. Over time, those small errors that may have seemed trivial at the time could become more serious issues.
They're already doing that on reddit. Fanboyism is so dangerous. No one should be that emotionally invested in a corporation, it lets them get away with anything.
It's also a violation of law in some places.
https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/penal-code/pen-sect-632/
I think they gave us enough information to understand their legal strategy. They will argue that the watch has sufficient processing power to transcribe the text in real time, and a plain text transcript is not a recording.
It likely stretches the definitions compared to what most people who do not want to be recorded think the laws should prevent, but on the other hand at least it couldn’t be used as legal evidence. It sounds intended as a memory aid, where passing a transcript for gossip purposes will hopefully be met with automatic skepticism as something that isn’t authenticated in any way and could be made up entirely.
They probably spent enormous amounts of time weighing how much legal jeopardy it would create for their customers.
I can’t tell how California law treats e.g. hitting the little microphone icon on the iPhone with the notes app open (realtime live transcription w/no recording that I know of) versus the voice memo app (illegal without all-party consent, as it creates a recording).
The world’s fastest smartphone typist can do what the mic icon does. In, say, court, “look I typed this” & “look this was dictated” would seem to be just as trustworthy since either can be edited after the fact. And someone could type and say it was transcribed, or transcribe and say it was typed. Whereas the law doesn’t want us voice recording and having the actual (forensically provable? w/the right budget?) record, unless everyone agreed.
It's a 15 second loop of audio history. If you didn't record the bit a minute ago, it's gone.
A short buffer is common with wake word audio processing.
It also summarizes your full conversations.
No, that part requires intent, where you have to turn it on with the button. It was in the demo.
Regardless, you'll be mortified if you search the app store for software or Amazon for hardware devices that do this! You can still pick up voice recorders at Staples, actually (I was surprised to see they still sell them, and they have weeks of recording time now, along with transcription software).
One of the options was always on, or always on while in work mode.
I’m curious if the lack of speaker identification is a privacy thing, or a technical limitation.
It looks like it uses PCC, so it may run into usage limits
You missed the additional feature launch where they listen to your entire life and give you transcriptions and summaries.
“Siri Recap”
https://support.apple.com/en-us/148354
> Siri Recap runs only when you choose. You can turn on Siri Recap in the Watch app on iPhone. When you turn it on, you can set a schedule based on time and/or location (for example, "only at work" or "never at night"), or you can manually turn it on and off. Across all these options, you can always turn it on or off at any time from Control Center.
> Siri Recap and Live Rewind help jog your memory, not provide a detailed record. Siri Recap doesn't produce a transcript. It generates a brief, high-level summary — comparable to notes you might jot down after a conversation. Live Rewind shows a text snippet of what was just said in the last 15 seconds, so you can catch something you missed.
And a crime in plenty of states. It shouldn't be, but it is.
My first thought was 2-party state violations, 24/7? However, any legally-minded people want to explain how they threaded the needle on this?
I have real respect for Apple's "Private Cloud Compute" architecture [0], I am not a hater, just trying to understand.
Are these the dividends Apple is getting from doing this truly impressive work?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49427928 - https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/
It really depends on what you consider a recording. If audio is streamed though a transcription engine and never saved in a way that could be replayed, it's hard to argue that a recording has been made. The live audio was transcribed.
While I still do trust that on-device audio is safe, you can rewind and record it on another device.
The regulatory workaround is an "un-mutable" audio notification of some sort. This might be a very notable sound in the near future. I am curious what the chosen waveform might be:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/148354#:~:text=Audible,activ...
This is exactly what I was thinking too. How can this be legal in 2-party states?
The 2 party state thing is for phone calls. Outside of phone calls, you are generally allowed to record anything you can legally hear, same as you can photograph anything you can legally see.
>Outside of phone calls, you are generally allowed to record anything you can legally hear
I am not a lawyer but I do not believe that is true in any state except Nevada. Two-party consent almost always includes in person conversations. California Code, Penal Code 632:
>A person who, intentionally and without the consent of all parties to a confidential communication, uses an electronic amplifying or recording device to eavesdrop upon or record the confidential communication, whether the communication is carried on among the parties in the presence of one another or by means of a telegraph, telephone, or other device, except a radio, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500) per violation, or imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year
https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/penal-code/pen-sect-632/
As far as I can tell in 2 party states, it depends on the expectation of privacy, and even in public, your intent. In any case, here is their threading of the needle:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/148354#:~:text=app%2E-,How,s...
There's some more details on privacy at the bottom of the page:
> Audio Intelligence features are private by design
> a dedicated hardware-isolated compartment that processes audio in complete isolation from the rest of the system, then immediately deletes it
> Users are in control and [...] can decide exactly where and when Siri Recap takes notes, and can turn Siri Recap on or off at any time
> Siri Recap produces a brief, high-level summary of conversations — not a transcript — and is designed to exclude sensitive information like financial information or government-assigned identifiers
Yeah, even more weird was when they highlighted the privacy aspect of it. Sure, it maintains the wearer's privacy, just not that of anyone around them.
In what way does this violate the privacy of anyone around them? It doesn't even store audio recordings, which is something every smartphone has been able to do for 20 years.
It keeps information on what they said?
15 seconds at a time, when the owner activates the feature. The scale of its recall is not meaningfully different than someone scribbling down 15 seconds worth of what they hear someone say (or even just remembering it), and does not pose a greater privacy risk than a scratchpad or human memory.
It’s also much less effective at recording people speaking for long durations than the audio recording feature that every smartphone for the last 20 years has supported.
It also does not identify individual speakers.
If you don't want any one to write down or remember what you said, maybe don't say it to them?
Have you never had a conversation someone you trust that you prefer there not be an automated written record of?
This thread is so fascinating, I had no idea that because I'm comfortable having an intimate conversation with a friend means I'm also okay with a potentially permanent AI summary being generated based on it, and without my knowledge or consent!
Human memory keeps more information than this feature does.
Tell us everything, what happens on tour stays on tour - sure. Just approve that your data is - of course - anonymously used to train AI and regarding intelligence agencies or AI Acts: well, it is not us, it is them. Law is law, you know. We won't tell you anyway.
There is no privacy left. And to be honest, people worshipping their phones all day but complaining about privacy is the biggest WTF I have. This doesn't match.
Also I am a Mathematician and know statistics very well. The person, who is not on Facebook, but on WhatsApp, who works at X and lives in Y - we got you my friend.
You moved away? No problem! Someone photographed you casually, you weren't even the main character, we ignored you, and send it in a group chat you know nothing about. Well, we know all the others and can relate to anyway. And then? Well AI can very well predict you aging - easy. We have you already. Sleep well and dream of being unknown. Because... How do you know what you don't know?
I gave up on privacy because there is none anymore. Selling and publication of your data is a whole different story. And that's what Apple means by circumventing the rest.
It maintains everyone’s privacy.
Just because your voice was recorded doesn’t necessarily mean it can be played back and/or “stolen”.
Your soul won’t be sucked out through Apple Watches.
I think if someone followed me and my friend around and kept a transcript and summary of every conversation between and around us in a little notebook, I would have a basis to say my privacy was being violated, right?
Apple Watch doesn't maintain a transcript of every conversation. The user has to take action, and then it only goes back 15 seconds.
If someone is following you around within earshot and fiddling with... a notepad and pencil or a watch or a phone or a tape recorder, then yes, you have reason to be upset. I agree.
The ability of the Apple Watch to do what has always been possible doesn't materially change your privacy. [1]
Fundamentally, this is an accessibility feature, and Apple -- and other vendors -- have already shipped several similar ones. Were you equally upset by those too? AirProds already 'record' all audio around them! They can even be used as listening devices! https://support.apple.com/en-au/102479
This reminds me of parents getting hysterical when someone pulls out a DSLR at a kid's soccer game, while standing next to half a dozen parents who are all taking pictures with the phones and immediately uploading them to Meta.
[1] There are valid arguments to be made that this will be normalised and cloned... badly by Chinese and South Korean vendors without the privacy safeguards, at which point it is "too late" to put the genie back in the bottle.
Why does the 15 seconds matter? My conversations with friends would be vastly different if I knew at any second they could push a button and get a transcript of what we just said. I'd pretty much never make a joke again.
Now imagine knowing that they'll go home and be able to see a nice summary of the various conversations throughout the night. Just very normal social behavior, made easy by Apple.
Sorry, you're right about the transcript, it's the summary that's generated that's still off putting.
And I don't think we can compare this to weirdos being able to record other people, this is about when my friends come over and I have to wonder if they think it's normal to have running since "it's technically not recording" or "the summary is anonymized. It's normalizing behavior that's just a little weird, like people who use those ai recorders. I fail to see how that's not a violation of my privacy in some way.
Also you don't need to point out stupid gatchas about airpods, don't be an ass.
So—speaking to the general “you” here—not you, @jiggawatts, personally (I’m sure we’re both lovely, and I chose to respond here only because you seem to capture the prevailing opinion simply, thoughtfully, and reasonably)—
I respect that you believe that. I do not. It touches up against my basic relationship to reality and existence. To me, there’s a difference between a person and a machine. And between a meeting-of-the-minds-in-the-moment and an archival record.
To me, even the act of processing me through something-other-than-your-human-mind feels violative—essentializing and reductive. For me it’s wrapped up in ideas about attachment, and illusions of permanence, and attention and presence and the extra ineffable elements of human contact that unfold at levels other than the words and an exchange being about much more than the “information content.”
You don’t have to agree with me, but it’s frustrating for my conversation partner to take what I bring to a conversation while demanding to also take more than I’m willing to offer.
You’re free to allow people to record you, or analyze you, or machine-summarize you, or livestream you for the judgment and entertainment of the internet-dwelling masses, or whatever you’d like.
And I’m free to say: do not record me. Ever. Even on a rolling buffer, even “just for note-taking.” Even if it “only lives” some specific digital place. Unless I specifically say it’s OK, ahead of time; and we agree on how specifically the processed-me-byproduct will be used.
I’m not unreasonable! Sometimes the answer is yes! Is it for accessibility? Of course, go for it! Thank you for asking. Do we want to make a statement for the record? Great! But ask.
Funnily enough the “soul sucked out” trope occurred to me too, but it seems like we take different lessons from it. For me, it cues stories about a bunch of economically powerful people inserting themselves into places and situations where other people lived. Using their new camera technology to exploit those people’s images and likenesses, and justifying it by rolling their eyes together at how superstitious and backward and dumb those people were for not liking it. As if it were impossible for somebody to understand the thing and still not want it used on them.
And thus figuring their superiority gave them permission to “educate” the people whose likenesses they sought to exploit. And if the subjects still didn’t like it, it must be their shortcoming (since all right-thinking people obviously agree about matters of the soul and of cameras).
So it was OK to disregard their subjects’ beliefs, and their subjects’ dignity. The camera-pushers were entitled, by dint of their superior certainty, to treat people like specimens.
I agree there’s a parallel, but I think the people who were in the wrong were the people forcing the cameras on people who didn’t want to be involved.
[ETA, for @cindyllm: Your provocations are sublime, and I'm grateful that you continue to confound those of us who walk with the dead. You keep me off balance like nobody else. Is that your LinkedIn, or would I be spamming a random Canadian person?]
While I instinctively dislike any "secretly spying" devices, phones could do that for a while now. I wouldn’t have much use for my watch doing it, but my nephew swears by taking notes on an ipad with an app that has a sort of a playback: essentially a play bar that recreates the note as it is written, with audio included. Being able to playback the lecture afterwards that way is a huge benefit over pure notes and I wish I had something like that when I was in school.
Friction makes all the difference. Google used to sweat over 100ms in page loading.
Running a voice memory all day long is one thing. Pressing a button that automatically summarizes every conversation you'll ever have is a step change.
There's a difference between "weird people could choose to do this creepy thing and violate my trust" and "not weird people could forget to turn off this slightly less creepy thing and still violate my trust" Both of these suck, but honestly I don't appreciate that Apple is making me feel uneasy talking around my friends with Apple Watches. Not because I don't trust my friends, but because now it takes extra work for them to not do something kinda creepy.
Apple isn't making you feel anything, you're doing it all on your own. There may be a transcription of what you said, oh no the sky is falling.
You and I must have very different conversations with people that we trust to respond in such a way.
They're probably an AI bot for Apple
Jfc the tedium on this site. Sure, no one makes me feel anything, you're technically right buddy.
I don't appreciate Apple normalizing the already creepy ai note takers that exist and increasing the odds that someone will use them in casual or intimate conversations.
> It's made even worse by the fact that [...] their external designs are unchanged from past ones, so there's no way to tell who's always listening to everything
Yeah, I just decided the entire Apple Watch brand is suddenly a creeper device, so I'm not going to wear mine out, nor otherwise around other people.
I don't want to endorse creeper devices by appearing to wear one, and I don't want to be insensitive to people who might wonder whether I'm "note taking" everything we say.
Also, I got an iPhone specifically to use the Apple Watch awhile, so I'm probably switching back to GrapheneOS sooner than expected.
Same. I hope Apple doesn't kill AirPods for me the same way they just did the Apple Watch. I like those.
I just assume everything in public is audio/video recorded. In most places that's perfectly legal (with some exceptions). I don't think people should expect privacy in public. We faced the same panic about photographs when mobile phones started getting cameras. With some notable problems, everyone accepted it and moved on. The utility we get from cameras in phones is worth far more than the privacy violations which occur. The same thing is going to happen with this technology (and smart glasses).
I don't believe it. Photography was invented by non-Big Tech, and was widely popular and useful before Big Tech adopted it.
Miniature cameras on your body, and summaries of every conversation you have which you can store permanently, are concepts from either spy movies or weird sci-fi. I think it's a big mistake to see this as a continuation and not as a very different trend.
We may have to accept that Big Tech people are weird and cannot be trusted with any of this. See the Valley people now feeding all their personal conversations to agents. They are creepy and they are creating products in their own image.
> I don't believe it. Photography was invented by non-Big Tech, and was widely popular and useful before Big Tech adopted it.
Cameras were invented before big tech. Big tech took cameras and made them better and more ubiquitous. Microphones were invented before big tech. Big tech is taking them and making them better and more ubiquitous.
To be clear, I agree that the leaders of these companies are weird and untrustworthy. I'm arguing that the utility they will offer the world is worth far more to most people than the privacy concerns. Because of this, most people will happily adopt this technology.
It's the first iteration of what will eventually be an on-device Siri/openclaw that not only has full access to your messages/docs/emails/life, but also has live audio access to what's going on around you.
Remember, this is all running via local models on-device.
This is how Siri/openclaw can hear you make plans for lunch, then add it to the calendar before you open your phone.
This is a step down the road to having an AI "presence" or entity that's always digesting sensory data, just like a human.
Marital strife is a few years out from getting a lot more evidence-based.
More detail/discussion on the passive audio recording and transcription/summarization features:
Apple details how Apple Watch’s new Audio Intelligence features work in privacy paper https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49635185
Apple Doesn’t Want You to Worry About the New Apple Watch’s Listening Features https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49634947
Yeah very creepy, I'm afraid it'll be normalised in a few years, together with the cameras in our glasses.
I always knew this was coming eventually, with storage and compute getting so cheap, eventually every record can and then will be saved for security / convenience reasons. Every word uttered, every emotion shown on your face, every URL visited, every view you laid your eyes on.
I will miss the days that things could happen and be forgotten.
No doubt this stuff is all very useful, but I'd rather we skip this line of technology.
It makes a chime when enabled and only stays on for 15 second increments.
The degree to which people are going apeshit over this is absolutely absurd. People need to get a grip.
The always on ai summary feature does not, it just does its thing in the background.
I wonder if this feature will make people wary of Apple watch wearers.
It will make me as wary as I am around people that wear those little AI notetaker/recorders, so, very. At least with those it's a single use device that you can spot, now any Apple Watch could be listening, fun!
I don't know if this will be the common reaction, but after seeing this I've made a mental note to not discuss anything private with anyone wearing an Apple Watch. Makes me suspicious of iPhones, too, after years of defending them and saying that 'technology is always listening' is a silly conspiracy
“Always listening” in the way people have been conspiratorially claiming your phone is listening to show you ads is silly.
Always listening in that the owner could run an application that could be recording them and you on the other hand has been a possibility since pretty much day one.
That's a good point, anyone with a smart phone could trivial have a voice recorder going all day and run it through whisper
You should need to come up with a derogatory name for people wearing apple watches like Glasshole for people with google glass
Apple Watch Spy
Apple Watch Tattletale
Apple Informer
Watchholes
iSnitches
Apple Watcher?
You would be aghast to spend any time in tech these days. I would wager more than 20% of the people in this field right now are wearing devices which record everything they say in every conversation and ship it directly to a transcription LLM and into some other tools. Go to SV and I bet this number jumps to nearer to 30-40%
It will stop arguments between partners "you said this week ago, now you say this" okay honey, let's compare our transcripts.
This is exactly the plot of the Black Mirror episode "The entire history of you"
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089050/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_of_Fact,_the_Truth_o...
Ted Chiang (author of Arrival) wrote about this
Looking forward to it!
It's so creepy. So their watch is now always recording audio, and the rumors say that their next generation of AirPods Pro will gain cameras.
I don't want an always-listening watch. I don't want earbuds with cameras. I don't want people around me to have those things either. I hate it.
“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. This is because the S11 chip on Apple Watch Series 12 includes Secure Exclave, a dedicated hardware-isolated compartment that processes audio in complete isolation from the rest of the system, then immediately deletes it.”
People love to get worked up over technology that is actually private and secure.
Meanwhile they’ll use Google and Facebook without a second thought.
So I took issue with the automated note taking of conversations and didn't mention audio recordings. No mention of using Google or Facebook either.
How is this different from a privacy standpoint of someone simply memorising what you said in the last fifteen seconds and scribbling it down onto a piece of paper?
You’re sounding… hysterical.
Even if you regularly say things that must never be tied back to you, like.. you are in the mafia or you’re an actual spy or whatever, and every single person around you has this on their wrist listening to every word you say all of the time… Nothing changes for you.
The users of the watches still have to take action to use the audio, which they too would have heard anyway, and could have transcribed and texted to someone or written down.
Oh… wait… are you MIB? Are you concerned that your memory eraser wand won’t wipe Apple Watch recordings of the last 15 seconds, allowing the public to finally know about aliens amongst us?
I know that sounds silly, but unless you can erase the memories stored in human brains, then you must realise that everything you say in the presence of meat computers with audio listening devices attached (ears) can be recorded (memorised).
> How is this different from a privacy standpoint of someone simply memorising what you said in the last fifteen seconds and scribbling it down onto a piece of paper?
I would hope to not be friends with such a fucking weird person tbh. But I guess if it's automated into a sexy device it's fine.
Again, you sound absolutely hysterical.
This isn’t on all the time. It’s on in 15 second increments and clearly chimes when enabled. This is literally just the equivalent of saying “one sec while I get a pen to write this down” and then taking a note.
The summary feature is always running, and is also creepy to me.
>How is this different from a privacy standpoint of someone simply memorising what you said in the last fifteen seconds and scribbling it down onto a piece of paper?
The difference is extremely obvious, to the point that you even typed out one of the differences!
Okay, so it’s functionally identical. Got it.
You think we’re talking about functionality and not automation. Got it. Try again.
I mean it's nonsense, apple can update the "secure exclave" software at any time to exfiltrate the audio if they want or get ordered to.
If you read that quote carefully you'll also notice it's only the audio that's ever mentioned as inaccessible to apple etc but never mentions anything about the actual transcript, wanna bet that goes into their little advertisement venture?
There is no transcript - you make claims about what Apple “never mentions “ but they do - in great detail:
“Audio from the microphone enters the Secure Exclave of Apple Watch, where it is initially processed for speech, sounds, or music, without transcribing or storing the raw audio. This buffer is a continuously overwritten stream that exists only within the protected hardware and never creates an audio recording”
https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/Audio_Intelligence_Privac...
You just ignored the previous point. You linked to the audio never getting recorded or leaving the device. The previous post said the transcription of that audio leave that part of the device. They must, otherwise they could not be displayed and saved.
It’s great for exposing people abusing their authority by making off the record demands that they know are not kosher.
You can simply not talk if you don't want people to listen?
I think most people want to talk and have only the person they are talking to listen.
I think the times someone has something to say that is so sensitive they don't want a record of any kind kept, are rare unless you are a clandestine agent or military - and it's probably worth just asking those in literal earshot "Hey, I need to tell you something off the record, please make sure to turn off any AI transcription or similar."
IDK about you but most of the shit I say, I'd be happy for the hearer's assistant to be listening and potentially adding the things we agreed on to their to-do lists or calendars.
hmm. You talk to your coworker about some juicy gossip in cafe next to me. I have to put lead in my ears? and who cares about people with different languages, hearing difficulties etc etc...
FTA: “Apple Watch Series 12 now offers the most accurate step tracking of any smartwatch.12 The S11 chip also enables the brand-new Steps complication, so users can track their steps in real time, right from their watch face”
That must mean they’re very confident about the accuracy. I look forward to reviewers trying to beat their detection model.
Apple Watch is hitting diminishing returns feature-wise. I'm happy with my Series 11 but "it has more accurate heart sensors" isn't really revolutionary, and I believe some of the Apple Intelligence features will be backported anyways.
With fast charging, battery life hasn't been an issue; I just put it on the charger while in the shower and that does the trick.
Having had an Apple Watch since the Series 0, I think Apple wants people to have a ~3-year upgrade cycle. They essentially update the internals one year, the next they come out with some interesting software features, then the next year they do some external design tweaks. Then they repeat.
There is no reason to upgrade every year, or even every two. It is around the 3-year mark where there tends to be enough new features or your battery life is getting bad enough that there is reason to check out the new watches. Even then my mom uses a Series 6 and is very happy with it and actually uses it a fair bit.
I dunno. Maybe there's a sense in which there's some untapped use cases out there that Apple needs to go figure out. But in a different sense, the idea that I buy a watch that lasts for years and I don't feel like I'm missing out in the meantime...sounds fine?
I got my first Apple Watch a year and a half ago. After coming to terms with the fact that the form factor has fundamental limitations, it's faded into the background and has been an excellent watch, fitness tracker, and occasional remote control and messaging device. I'm kinda glad that series 11 and 12 haven't given me fomo!
(I do wish they made more good watch faces though...)
> With fast charging, battery life hasn't been an issue
I sold my 10 last year and haven’t missed it. You don’t have reasonable access to a charger during a marathon or a long hike, the latter of which needed me to charge my Apple Watch 3 times over the course of 12 hours of hiking.
I regularly do long races like marathons and 20 mile trail races and have never had to charge my watch during those events and I am often even streaming music/podcasts from the watch. With an Ultra you should be able to easily do a 12 hour hike.
Marathons and 20 mile trail races are not remotely long. A thru hiking day is usually about as long as the available daylight hours, so 16 hours in summer. A 100K race typically falls in the 10 to 20 hour range, depending on the terrain and the personal fitness. A 100 miler is usually over 30 hours for sub elites. An entry level Coros watch can handle all of these, there is no need to bring up premium priced Garmins, and certainly not much justification for the Apple Watch Ultra.
I'm very close to selling my S10. I barely use it. All the features are sort of nice to have. The only one I really care about is heart rate monitoring during exercise and the AirPods Pro 3 do that.
Meanwhile Coros Pace 4, a 200 dollar watch, has 40 hours of GPS tracking and offline map. I simply can not understand the pricing strategy of Apple. Do they really expect people who are serious about endurance sports and training to get their ridiculously expensive Ultra? Or they are just fine with Garmin taking the biggest chunk of this market?
The Garmin Forerunner 970 is only $50 cheaper than the Ultra. Then, the Garmin Fenix 9 is more expensive than the Ultra and doesn't have cellular and charges significantly extra for the satellite connectivity.
My Fenix 7 has ~12 days of life, while using it every day for fitness tracking, maps, the occasional LED flashlight, etc. It also is at least IME much more of a beast than an (admittedly older gen) Ultra. I charge before I leave, then spend a week or more living out of backpack and sleeping on the ground. I very much want to go back to Apple Watch but Garmin battery life and durability is just so much better for my use case.
Few people spend a week or more living out of a backpack. The ultra 4 is rated to do 84 hours in low power mode and 45 in workout mode. Few people are going to max that out and those people probably aren’t interested in an Apple Watch and have other priorities.
Are people serious about endurance sport actually a big market?
Funny this was downvoted: I was thinking the same as I was reading this thread.
True mass market means optimizing your product for the fat part of the population bell curve. This is some point or region in a space of { cost, features, use cases, durability }. The Apple Watch works for everyone from a stay at home parent, stocker at the supermarket, executive, and so on. If you work in a machine shop or spend a few hours every day working out it may not be for you.
There’s a marginal but valuable exception: think of prosumer cameras. There are indeed pros, and the feature set is good enough for some of them to shoot with a prosumer camera (any actual pro can shoot better photos with an instamatic than I can with a phone, much less an SLR). But most people buy the high end aspirationally. Why not? That penumbra pulls more people in who really need the plain old features.
And anyway once you really are at the high end your needs can be idiosyncratic.
>You don’t have reasonable access to a charger during a marathon or a long hike
Isn't this the market they made the Ultra for?
Well no, they made the Ultra for very rich people who do long hikes or similar. For most of us, a smart watch isn't so important that the increase in price is worth it, even if we're annoyed by the battery life of the non-Ultra watch which is too poor for any kind of day-long activity.
No one that does this with any regularity or seriousness uses an Apple Watch, they go with Garmin or one of the real fitness watches that can claim battery life in weeks and even months. My Fenix 8 charges once every 26-29 days. I left Apple Watch and never looked back. It's just an inferior product in every possible way.
Guess it depends. I do trail races (usually 25k and 20-milers) and marathons regularly, and Apple Watch has worked just fine for me and has a lot of other features that I use regularly that are largely not available on Garmin. I also prefer the map app I use on my Apple Watch compared to what my partner uses on his Garmin.
Did a long bike ride recently and just used my iPhone to track the workout. Probably suboptimal, since it doesn't have all the heart rate stuff, but it gets the big picture (elevation gain, speed, distance).
> ... and I believe some of the Apple Intelligence features will be backported anyways
Will it? Because they kind of made it a point, like they typically do, to say features are only possible due to the new chip.
I'm still on a Series 6. Don't see a reason to buy the new one at all.
Mine got slow with the latest update. I stopped wearing it mostly and I don’t think I will get another smart watch. I’m more tempted by those screen less fitness tracker pucks.
The Apple Watch is just too expensive for something that goes obsolete far faster than a normal watch. The watches I owned before the Apple Watch 6 are still in perfect condition and as good as the day I got them while the AW is bordering on ewaste.
I recently replaced the battery in my Series 6. I’ve never noticed it feeling slow.
Maybe mine is worn out, but things like opening the wifi/bluetooth controls pane, or scrolling notifications is noticeably low fps now.
I was hoping we might get multi-day battery life this iteration. Fast charging is almost as good.
I think it might be time to upgrade from my series 8.
The way faster higher measurement rate is interesting and does open up entirely new use cases.
Not like Apple will let us do anything fun with their APIs, though.
> I believe some of the Apple Intelligence features will be backported anyways.
Oh, I wouldn't count on it. The older hardware is capable, but Apple is running out of ideas how to make people upgrade.
This. It’s stepping into Whoop’s territory with always on heart rate reading.
And the Ultra series have been marginally incremental, emphasis on marginally. They announced that Ultra series 1 software support is ending this year, but I just cannot justify buying another one of these at $800.
I mean, there's only so much that a watch can do or that can be packed into it. Eventually all gadget categories fall into a lull of slow and steady progress, they can't all be absolute bangers year after year
On what legal footing does this recap feature stand? In fairly certain there are a non-zero amount of laws prohibiting audio recording without consent. And this wrist mounted always listening thing is likely to end up in a lot of places it should not. Probably burried in the end user agreement that it is 100% the users fault.
> On what legal footing does this recap feature stand?
It's not a crime if you do it with AI.
Sad isn't it?
Instant in-memory transcription likely isn't legally considered the same as storing the actual audio. It probably couldn't be used as proof in a court like audio could (for now...).
Probably not, but contemporaneous notes have their own value legally.
It produces "high level summaries" so it's perhaps legally akin to note-taking rather than audio recording?
I wonder how long before we see how well these summaries hold up in court.
It isn't recording or storing audio, so laws against audio recording don't apply.
That really bothers me. It might be legal for Apple to do this but it's still creepy as fuck.
They're still recording everywhere and sending a transcription to iCloud and they're doing it without consent.
This has the same vibes as those Meta glasses. It's something that people will force on others.
Aren't you just confused about this whole situation? You do know that the human the watch is attached to has ears right? Which record and store the information?
You have no expectation of privacy next to another human in public places.
No, I don’t think so.
Human memory is well known to be unreliable. There’s a clear difference with “he said, she said” type recollections and what Apple is doing. People forget things and they get things wrong.
There may indeed be no expectation of privacy in public but this still really creepy and slightly threatening.
It’s always listening and allows you to go back without pressing record before hand.
Now you have a potential written record of every off colour remark, joke and personal discussion you over hear.
Maybe you think the world would be better if we all watch what we say in public further, I don’t.
Transcriptions count if you’re using them to intercept and record oral communications between others.
The recording doesn’t have to be audio to violate the Federal Wiretap Act.
I am not sure who and why came up with this looks like a mass surveillance to me.
It’s to compete with all the failed AI wearables with the same features.
I imagine it was ran past their likely large legal department.
You imagine so but it would be difficult to imagine a situation where Apple would be liable, so their level of concern would be much lower.
Otherwise, manufacturers of digital voice recorders, etc., would also be fearful.
I was saying the same to my friend.
PA has very strict two party consent wiretap laws I'm not sure this feature would clear.
IANAL but my guess is that they're leaning heavily into the fact that the feature just generates transcripts and does not persist any audio recordings.
Yes, many states in the U.S. have recording laws that prohibit only one party giving consent to record. Aka: I give consent but the other party may not in which case it could be illegal.
Seems like it’s not recording, you can’t access an audio recording.
Just the output of what the AI thinks was in the audio
Also Android has had shazam style always on music recognition for years now with no issues, this isn’t that different
> this isn’t that different
It's entirely different. One is fingerprinting ambient audio against a corpus of known signatures to identify music, another is basically silently monitoring and summarizing every conversation it hears for later review.
I don't feel like my privacy is being invaded by a date's phone telling them what song was playing at the restaurant, but I would be disturbed if their phone produced a summary of our conversation, especially if any vulnerable topics came up.
I feel like I'd also be a little weirded out to find my date referencing the summary or transcript later, maybe that's just me. Like if I said something personal and they whipped out a notebook and wrote it down real fast, that's unnerving.
... but not particularly unfair on your interlocutor, just off putting
The Android feature is matching songs it hears to an on-device database of fingerprints, the other is recording, transcribing, and summarizing all conversations around it. Seems a little different.
Moved to Garmin.
Maybe less powerful but battery life is the most important feature for me.
Counterintutively, that didn't work out well for me. When the watch has ample power to make it through one day, but not two, I just put it on my schedule of daily rituals. Usually just throw it on the charger while I take a shower. But when the battery life is measured in weeks, I don't build any sort of habit like that and I end up finding out about it the hard way. My ideal watch never runs out in a single day and charges fast enough that during my shower it will get me through the next day. Based on the stats of the Series 12, it would probably fit the bill.
Just continue to charge your Garmin when you take a shower. I don’t understand why you need to change your habits. Are you worried about making the battery full at longer durations causing degradation? A smartwatch is fundamentally a disposable piece of electronics that last a few years.
The garmin has so much battery life that when it's at 10% and starts complaining that the battery is close to dying I still have about 2 days to remember to charge it.
And obviously you don't get penalised for charging it more often. Just charge it every Sunday if routine is a big issue.
I had the exact same experience. Charging an Apple Watch is a routine thing, charging a garmin is an infrequent annoyance.
And like the other commenter says, I could just fix my habits. But no, that’s not how my brain works
I am currently using both an apple watch SE 2 and a garmin vivoactive 5 simultaneously. Even if the Garmin has better battery life, I don't really like it for 2 reasons: - the round watch UI is ugly and doesn't work with the other UI elements. Also I don't mind using a squared watch, I like it. My Casio is also square-ish. - the UX is terrible, the customization is terrible. The default watch faces are all quite ugly, and the Garmin app makes the customization experience even worse.
Also, I feel like the sleep is more accurate on the Apple watch than on the Garmin from a couple episodes that happened and in general from the differences in tracking time.
Also, as you already said, I just charge the watch everyday while I shower, so battery life is not really an issue for 80% of the time. For the other 20% it's really annoying... but I think a newer model (and I hope that the new ones will be even better on that side) will have better battery life. When the battery life will be ~48 hours it will be perfect for me.
Same.
I just wish Garmin would get their act together with filtering notifications on iOS. No, I'm sorry, not every app on my phone should be important enough to buzz my wrist. Filtering works fine for Garmin on Android, and apparently for other watch brands on iOS (Coros, Pebble, etc).
The sad thing is all I really need is app-level granularity (slack, you're banned from my wrist!).
If this isn't fixed by the time my 5 year old Fenix fails, I'll move to a different brand that enables filtering.
From what I’ve heard, this is actually a problem with the exposed OS level api’s provided by Apple. Other manufacturers have solved this with on device workarounds. Doesn’t make it better though. I resorted to only the system only notifications (Phone, Texts).
As an end user, all I really care about is that the watch doesn't buzz every single time my long-winded colleague hits <enter> on slack, but that I do see slack notifications when I'm able to look at my phone. And I always want to see my wife's texts on my wrist...
Whether that filtering is in the app, in the OS, or on the watch is not important to me.
I think the way to do this is in iOS itself. I would be shocked if Coros has better notifications tech than Garmin; it’s a way smaller company. I don’t even remember touching notifications when I set up my Coros watch. I think it is just governed by my iOS settings.
iOS has a lot of power to finely control notifications. For example for Slack I just have app badges, while iMessage buzzes. In Mail, only people I’ve added to a small “VIP” list cause a buzz. Otherwise I just look at the Mail app badge to see how many emails have come in.
It takes time to tune it, but it is a very good investment IMO.
I was on the Ultra for 18 months or so and came away from it feeling like a much less powerful and capable Garmin is much nicer as a daily watch. I found myself wanting to find reasons/excuses to justify the Ultra. Ultimately I couldn't, and it wasn't worth its cost, charging schedule, and lack of battery life.
I can see why others like them (they want WatchOS and Apple-specific capabilities). That stuff is useful, but not often enough for me to care.
Really, the watch was a regular reminder of how functional life was before the watch existed, if that makes sense. It's a genuine marvel, and yet... I got by (and get by) great without it.
I think a large percentage of your problem might be that you bought the most expensive model. Was the Ultra really the one to get?
It’s the thickest and heaviest, for one thing.
There’s a decent argument for the SE as the best Apple Watch for most people because it’s cheap and it does most of the things that regular people want out of a smartwatch.
As I recall, I went with it because it supported the best dive features. I used it for that quite a bit for a while, but eventually realized my basic cheap dive watch worked fine, could take a beating, and was actually better rated for deeper dives. Having physical buttons is a huge advantage over the Ultra. The dial was never enough to get the control I wanted, even if the UI only required it.
I was recently looking for a new running watch but couldn't for the life of me figure out what Garmin's higher end watches do to justify being over $1000. Like, ok, better battery life... but besides that?
For workout tracking depending on your sport the Garmin is way better- for swimming the lap counter and for hiking the trail maps on Garmin gets more granular and better for tracking. For skiing the altitude tracking and vertical distance is better on the Garmin.
For phone, calendar and work integration the apple watch is better (I have it hooked up to take calls from the watch) so I ultimately went with the apple watch even though my triathlon training tracking was better on the Garmin!
In one social group I am part of, Garmin just became the new trend. Watches have historically been status symbols even more than they are functional. Someone drops a few hundred/thousand/whatever and then brags about the newest new and how they are on it, then others move over to keep up.
People often buy these kinds of discretionary toys with their hearts and do post-hoc rationalization with their minds. You can't figure it out because your heart hasn't brought you there so your brain isn't wasting time creating justifications.
For what it is worth, sometimes these trends die an early death when people realize there is no substance underneath the justification. At least in the Garmin case, most people I know are happy with the purchase, in that it does deliver on certain needs. Since it matches their expectations, they don't have to suffer any cognitive dissonance between the heart-to-brain justification and their lived experience.
Better running metrics. Maps. On-device routing. Longer battery life.
> Maybe less powerful but battery life is the most important feature for me.
I've been using Garmin watches for years, wife always had Apple Watches. This year she got envious enough of the battery life that she also switched to Garmin now. Her watches sometimes barely lasted a day, requiring daily charges. Meanwhile, you get a week of battery easily with most Garmins.
From Apple:
"Apple Watch Series 12 continues to offer up to 24 hours of everyday battery life and now offers up to 10 hours of battery life during an outdoor workout — 25 percent more than the previous model.
Apple Watch Series 12 also offers faster charging: Just 15 minutes now gets up to 12 hours of additional battery life — 50 percent more than the previous model — so users can quickly recharge while getting ready for the day or before bed."
I had one of the first really cheap Xiaomi Smart Watches for 6 years and by the end a single charge lasted 2 weeks. Switched to an Apple Watch and 1 year in it lasts a single day, stopped wearing smart watches a few weeks ago, mainly due to this and just the fact that none of them look good imo.
Moved to Suunto, and I couldn't be happier.
I had an Apple Watch series 7, which I had to charge twice a day now. I was on a fence between buying a new AW or switching to another brand, but Apple dropping the software support for my model have made the choice for me. I
Been using Suunto Run for a year and have been happy. The thing I mostly miss is Apple Pay and Runna compatibility. I usually have my phone with me for the former, and I'll be snagging the Race 3S when it supposedly launches in Oct.
Assuming you’re using the Garmin for fitness related reasons — are you really carrying your phone around with you for music? I guess it works if you bike?
Some clothes have this technology called "pockets".
lmao this is the most HN comment ever
running with a phone in your pocket is hell
This person gets it.
It was fine up till the 13 mini. Every iPhone after that is too big and heavy to fit in a running belt without jostling.
I used to have my phone on a strap around my arm. Even that stopped working
I run with phone clenched in hand.
A lot of garmin watches let you download YT / Spotify or your own mp3s
Gotcha! Been a minute since I’ve looked it up.
Battery life on Garmin’s is genuinely terrible as soon as you have music running though. Less than the apple watch.
The plot thickens. Frankly even if it did get music right it would be tough to replace streaming my own Plex music library directly on my Apple watch. 100% worth paying for cellular.
The interface is terrible I've never actually remember to use spotify like this on my garmins and I've worn like 4 over the last decade. Maybe if you use it for a week straight it'll be muscle memory, but I only accidentally play music on it.
It can download and sync playlists and you connect bt headphones to it.
I'll keep buying garmins but I do hate the ux.
Apple killed support for three generations of Apple Watch hardware with its latest OS update: Series 6, Series 7, Series 8, and the original Apple Watch Ultra. So much for its commitment to the environment, perfectly capable hardware is being sent to the bin.
There's literally no new features on the watch. Adding in AI nonsense.
Am super salty about them killing support for the original Apple Watch Ultra. I, along with many others, bought it on launch day as both an Apple tragic / early adopter and to support what I thought was going to be an exciting new platform.
Instead we barely got a new feature over the 4 years since it launched, and now its been killed (from a software support pov) way ahead of schedule of the vast majority of other Apple devices.
For shame.
Why sent to the bin? The devices still work. I recently used my series 3 for a couple of weeks and it worked surprisingly well.
I thought it was understood that Apple gives hardware 5 years.
If the watch still works with the current OS on it, what's the issue?
Apps won't work anymore.
I really just want an Apple version of the new Fitbit Air.
I had an Apple Watch for five years. Battery didn't even last a day.
I realized generally I have my phone or laptop with me all the time anyway, I don't need a watch with weather or app widgets.
So in June I bought the fitbit air and it's great. Battery life lasts about 6-7 days. No distracting screen. MUCH more comfortable to sleep with since it has no buttons and a smaller form factor.
If Apple made their own version of the Air but with Apple Pay I would switch back over in a heartbeat.
I think Apple Watch is a great device for wearing to gym, to sleep, and somewhat during the day + occasional quick text reply maybe, and otherwise forgetting all about it, because the true value lies in what's being collected in the Health app. Stop trying to do things on it imo. Maybe there are a couple of useful things you can do, or if you're a runner, maybe you can leave your phone at home. I don't have these use cases, but it's valuable to me even without them.
My recommendation is: buy the cheapest material one every few years. I only ever had 2 and 5 (upgraded due to always on screen), and am considering to finally upgrade to 12.
I ditched the screen and got a band with health metrics on it. Its tiny and comfy, no screens, only a wakeup buzz in the morning when I'm most able to wake apparently. Battery lasts maybe a week? Been great. Best of all no advertisements pinging me every few hours.
I wouldn't mind this (a ring is another option), but 1) you can disable notifications, which I tend to do and 2) the problem is that all independent experiments keep claiming that almost everything is inaccurate out there, and Apple Watch is one of the few surprisingly accurate ones, as compared to real medical equipment.
> Best of all no advertisements pinging me every few hours.
Skill issue.
The first thing anyone should do when they get a smart watch is disable all notifications. It's so easy to do and it makes the experience so much better. It's completely backwards that notifications are opt out. Sadly, I've never seen anyone change their defaults.
Agree. Was really hoping for a Fitbit style band this year that just has a Siri button and Apple Pay. An iPod for your wrist perhaps.
I don't know. Apple marketing has been really effective at this health thing. Whereas, studies of continuous monitoring of eg heart with even better sensors and higher risk populations have shown conclusively no improvement in health outcomes.
I would have guessed the opposite.
Could you share a couple of these studies you are citing? Curious to read more.
Yeah, I only see anecdotal evidence of Apple Watch helping people: individual heavily-promoted stories.
Still, on a personal level, having my health data over time is something I find interesting to collect.
Things like my sleep, gym heartrate (I mostly pay attention to zones rather than specific numbers), sleep heartrate, occasional ECG reading, steps, with added smart scale and EMR data… It does show interesting trends over time.
Maybe it's just a general fatigue from AI, notifications, microphones, and cameras everywhere, but I'm pretty sure my next watch will be something from Germany or Switzerland containing springs and gears.
Don’t forget Japan! There’s some great Japanese mechanical watches. I’m a fan of the Seiko spring drive movement.
Right! I have been looking longingly in the direction of Grand Seiko.
Beautiful machines.
I went from an EV to my first manual car earlier this year for similar reasons I think
Yes but a Garmin is an upgrade.
Or Japan? Having digital accuracy and 10 year battery life is pretty nice.
Moved from my ultra 2, to a simply casio gshock 5601u, could not be happier, I am so sick and tired of all the notifications, stats, blah blah blah following me all over, from my macbook, iphone, that I just don't need it on my watch as well. I just don't care anymore about tracking everything and uploading to strava, or whever, and this comes from someone that, have over 100k km's logged on strava. I know the vast majority of people love it, and I love stats as well, but all the connected devices, is just getting too much, I am activily trying to go more simple, offline, outside of work.
My left wrist had formed an indent where I wore my se3. It was not worn tight, I tried different straps. In 6 months it looks like the tissue underneath has mostly moved away. I can feel my bone when I touch it. My right arm by contrast looks full like a regular arm.
Looked up apple watch indent reddit and I saw much more serious cases after years of use.
I’ve worn a samsung watch for a year it didn’t leave a mark, casio watches, none. Until apple fixes that weird dome shape never wearing one again. That watch is staying in the box it came in.
Edit: There seems to be people promoting other brands in this thread. Just want to make clear I do not recommend the samsung one either. Don’t want to be labelled as such. Just get a regular watch. Wear it when you go outside and take it off when inside. You were never using the mostly inaccurate health data anyway.
This is true of most objects that are constantly worn on your skin - my engineering ring has created a near-permanent indent in my pinky finger. It fades over time when it's not worn. It's an odd thing to hold against a wearable.
The marks will fade but this moves away tissue and I never faced this with any other watch. The dome always pushes in, the strap will further push in when you rotate your wrist especially the sports one. I don’t hate it but I do believe this should change, I paid a good amount for this and I willingly put it away.
Do you wear it to sleep as well?
Yes I fell for the collect all data trap. I wore it around 18 hrs at most. Honestly don’t think its worth it. I don’t know what to do with all the data it collects. Doesn’t even have good watch faces to tell the time atleast. Find my phone was useful though.
I wear mine everyday but I always take it off at night. No problems with dent. I also don’t wear it tight unless I’m exercising.
Did it return to normal after you stopped wearing it? How long did it take?
It is only been a week. Already not having the sensor dome on it cleared out the marks.
Still doesn’t feel as full. I can feel the two tiny bones on top much better than my right one. The skin texture is different where I wore it.
The only thing I've ever wanted is an apple watch that's thinner than the first one, my wrists are big enough I don't need a chonker. I don't care what time it is anyways
I wish they made it stupid thin. I wear my Whoop everyday, even sleep with it on. I could never do the same with an Apple Watch due to it's size but also due to the notification anxiety.
You can remove all notifications.
I have done so with all my devices since ~15 years ago. It's incredibly refreshing. When I see others reacting monkey-style to any notification or vibration from their phone or watch, I secretly smile inside.
I have a $20 smart fitness watch from Amazon which I use for sleep tracking, though it's a pretty capable watch. Much smaller than an Apple Watch and the battery lasts like 10 days on a charge. It connects to Apple Health and puts the heart rate / fitness / steps / sleep data in there.
If it could do the "make my phone beep" feature I'd probably switch to it as my main watch. But of course that's Apple exclusive proprietary :(
I think they really need a separate product that can have no screen or a minimal screen and ditches the need for app compatibility. Just selling the Apple Fitness features without the screen for apps would provide a lot of value and let them play with form factors and lower price points.
I am looking forward to 3rd party testing on most accurate heart rate. Because I have both Series 11 and Google Fitbit Air and the Air is so much better in everything, from accuracy, when to track and display of information.
I just wish they made a band without all the hassle. I don't use my Watch for anything other than Stop watch, Alarm Clock and Health Tracking.
I will try the Audio note taking, although my current Boss constantly lie and deny she have said something I am not sure how useful will this feature be.
It'd be more accurate to make claims compared to the smartwatches listed in the study, than claiming it's the most accurate on the market.
> Participants wore an Apple Watch on one wrist, and a comparative wrist-based device on the other, while using a Polar H10 ECG based chest strap as reference. Wrist assignment was randomized such that Apple Watch was worn on the dominant hand approximately 50% of the time. Wrist-based devices studied included Apple Watch Series 12, Garmin Forerunner 970, Google Pixel Watch 4, Huawei Watch 5, Samsung Galaxy Watch 8, and WHOOP 5. Oura Ring 5 was also worn on an index finger, per the manufacturer's stated best practices3
source, via the footnote: https://www.apple.com/HRAccuracy/
I have had many fitbits, but for my mom I purchased an Apple watch because it had sleep apnea notifications. I think that's essential for almost everyone.
I can't imagine why google would skip such a critical feature in Health Tracking.
Switched from apple to garmin to coros, not looking back. Coros blows everyone out of the water from a user experience standpoint, and they offer excellent value.
> Coros blows everyone out of the water from a user experience standpoint, and they offer excellent value.
Why? How?
Value for money, simple software not bloated compared to garmin, heart rate is on par with apple watch. They update their old devices with new features I think one of their models just got a software update for global mapping where you would need to pay extra to get a model with that feature from the competition. Devices could be better in terms of design and fit and finish in time they will get there I hope but overall they are doing pretty good stuff.
Is sync pretty seamless?
Coros cannot reply to imessages, cannot add to reminders, cannot add to calendar, cannot place a call from the watch
Yeah, sounds amazing /s
This thread is becoming low level ragebait
It’s a more focused sports experience. I genuinely didn’t use the messaging or reminder or calendar features when I had an Apple Watch, so they are just bloat.
Phone can be used for that. No need for it on a watch
I wish they would make one without all the health crap. Drop the sensors and add more battery.
I only really care about a few things (besides telling the time):
I couldn't care less about all the health sensing stuff, I have to take it out when I work out because it's either in the way or would break.That’s where you just get the SE on the cheap and don’t use the health stuff.
The battery life isn’t an issue, especially for the kind of light use you describe. Charge it when you sleep.
Had Apple not made the transcript/rewind feature a top line feature but put it down in an accessibility feature, I wonder if it would have changed the perception. I'm actually surprised they didn't do this as this is how they tend to test features before wider rollout.
Looks like Apple Watch Series 12 still doesn't have dual frequency GPS. Makes it a hard sell for someone who wants to use it as a running watch.
As much as I hate to say it, the most accurate GPS in a watch is the new Pixel Watch from Google, and its accuracy comes from uploading the GPS signal to Google to do building-aware post processing using Google’s database of worldwide buildings to solve the multi-path issue, plus DGNSS. Simply having dual frequency isn’t enough when you run on the streets of New York City. With Google’s solution, it can even detect which side of the sidewalk you are on while running.
I’m just not aware of any method that can do this without uploading your data to the cloud.
There's the Japanese approach of deploying a dense cluster of satellites above one geographical area (QZSS), but of course that only works in the areas those satellites are above.
The main reason I stopped using an Apple Watch is the lackluster battery life; in this series Apple claims 10 hours of battery life for outdoor workouts but without an iPhone. How is that realistic? If I’m going out for a hourlong run perhaps I don’t bring my iPhone, but I’m doing a multihour outdoor workout I would surely bring my phone, and certainly the extra Bluetooth communication would decrease battery life. It’s a silly metric.
The watch gets worse battery life without a phone - it offloads a ton of stuff to your phone via low power Bluetooth when the phone is nearby…
Not when you are working out. Instead, the presence of a phone means vibrating for notifications.
Very creepy. I don't like it
I was actually quite impressed with the AI note-taking and other features, and I could see myself using them, so I did like that.
With health, I really wish Apple would truly lean into health...go nuts and try to become effectively a super primary care provider. Integrate with blood tracking, automated diagnostics, something much cooler.
The problem with these kind of wearables today is this is just not very actionable. You have this data, and nobody ever really looks at it. "You had a bad night sleep, maybe sleep more." Yeah no kidding. I want it to say: "Hey we noticed this trend, it could be indicative of X, we recommend Y test. Would you like us to send it to you within 2 hours so you can get more data?"
> The problem with these kind of wearables today is this is just not very actionable.
I got the ultra 2 from Costco in the window of time where it still had the active o2 sensor.
It told me I probably had sleep apnea and to bring a print out of its chart to my primary care physician. That became a referral to an ENT and that became a referral for a sleep study. Turns out I had sleep apnea.
What was really surprising to me -- I was the first person both my primary doctor and the ENT saw who showed up with "my apple watch said I might have sleep apnea."
I've had a CPAP for about 10 months now and it's dramatically improved my sleep.
There are legal prohibitions against one-sided recording in some states (for example, mine).
Am I liable if my watch starts doing this? Or is Apple if it does this by default without even my consent?
I have no idea if the law cares about the privacy features Apple mentioned (no accessible audio, no speaker ID) if the audio was clearly captured at some point.
This thread is just PR people from other watch brands astroturfing.
I'm not a pull request person for Garmin myself. I switched because of battery life.
Funny, because literally every single apple product page gets posted as "news" to HN and every time I see one I think it's just apple marketing astroturfing. Especially since most of the product updates the last few years seem to fall into the, "BUT SHE'S GOT A NEW HAT" territory.
The watches I wear are mechanical, and most of them are older than I am, made by companies that no longer exist!
I can see the appeal of smart-watches for some things, but I'm too attached to my (small) watch collection to ever consider buying one.
That was my same thought! Brands I have never heard of that can't make a call, send messages or add a reminder popping up like they invented sliced bread.
We get it, some people don't want to charge a watch even though they have to regularly charge their phone, headphones, laptop and maybe car. Such a weird flex that a watch lasts an extra few days, who cares?! Charge it while you shower and you're good to go
I think it's 2 different end-consumers. Apple targets "watch on my arm", garmin targets fitness tracker that happens to do a few watch things (notifications, payments, some limited messaging).
Those are Apple-imposed limitations. The EU just forced them to open that part up recently.
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
I sometime joke we would oneday wear an always-on recorder and be happy about that. Looklike today is that day
I can't imagine not having a Garmin watch! Battery life and ability to forget I have it on constantly is a main feature for me
It seems absolutely ridiculous to have to recharge a watch everyday and I've read sleep tracking on the apple watch is suboptimal.
I own a Withings Scanwatch 2 (and owned a nokia steel hr before that) and can confidently say it is just enough smart watch for me.
Do you wear your watch in the shower?
Perhaps you don't take daily showers, but I just put my watch on the charger when I shower and that's all I ever need to charge it 99% of the time.
When I saw the part where the guy records the waitress and then re-reading the transcript. FFS just talk to them like a regular human being. If you did this to me I would just be supremely grossed out.
I’m way too unc for this. I’m out. I’m officially done with “tech”.
Wanted to look at the study's data, but the link seems to be broken. https://www.apple.com/HRAccuracy/
It works fine now.
Every single AW I’ve owned has this weird problem: when I go for a run it often doesn’t show my HR even after 10 mins, sometimes even longer. Super irritating.
Series 12 may finally fix that for you. They mention that the new heart rate sensors handle motion better.
I’m in Europe with an Ultra 2
There’s no chance we get the AI features so those don’t factor in at all
I guess it’s a bit more frequent sensors for the rest of the world? Not very compelling to upgrade.
Honestly, the killer smartwatch feature for me is being able to quickly click a button to find my iPhone. Everything else I use it for feels like I'm just trying to justify spending hundreds of dollars on it. I record all my workouts and my sleep patterns etc., but I never use that data for anything. I wish I could buy a $10 digital watch that also had a "find my iPhone" button.
Casio WSB1000 is probably the cheapest with phone pinging ability, but it's about $40.
The best thing I ever did was buy an e-paper display watch (pebble) which lasts weeks not hours.
the best thing I ever did was get rid of my collection of 41 watches and stop wearing one. my phone already has the time. I don't need a watch
Watches are fashion, for most people, rather than a necessity.
That said there are definitely days when I wander out of the house with a watch and no phone. Fewer these days as I use an app on my phone to pay for bus/tram/train fares, but its still nice to be able to do things without the need for a phone.
Anyone know how/why this one can take so many more HRV measurements? I mean the other ones can. What makes this one take more often? Guessing they are just setting it to do more. This is one thing that really annoys me is that it will go 4-6 hours without taking any measurements. When I am sitting down working etc.
I tried Google”s new Fitbit for a couple days but it only does them at night!!
they keep doubling down on HRV metrics
except optical HRV at the wrist is garbage
it cannot even measure when there is any movement
you'd think someone would come up with the technology to use the skin contact as a single lead ECG without requiring a second contact point by the other arm (or leg)
guess that's a generation or two away
suunto has the right idea with their tiny movesense ECG and it's even open-source
Staying with Garmin just for amazingly long battery life… and instinct series has solar too
Apple needs to move the health data storage, at least optionally, to the home pod/apple tv. My phone is my main interface, but it's not the only interface. And many of the devices that interface with the health app are not mobile. My blood pressure monitor, my bathroom scale. Test results from my doctor. And so on. These should be synced/stored on either my home device and exposed through an app on my phone/desktop/laptop.
oh come on, i bought my series 11 last week!
i'm going to miss out on all those amazing new features, like... an improved heart rate variability measurement
> Apple Watch Series 12 continues to offer up to 24 hours of everyday battery life and now offers up to 10 hours of battery life during an outdoor workout — 25 percent more than the previous model.
Are they really bragging about this pathetic performance? The charge in my Pebble lasts 20 days.
How can you sleep with a charge that lasts that short?
Disappointing. Instead of making battery life better that would benefit all of the Apple Watch users, here are some random AI features that most of you never gonna usa, and some new colors.
Even if they’re just matching battery life while adding frequent HRV readings, they’ve made a big advancement. Frequent HRV is a requirement to be a WHOOP/Garmin competitor.
Previous Apple Watch can do it if you tell it you have afib, but that hurts battery life.
FWIW I have told it I have afib. I used to have problems with battery life, but I find the Series 11 can finally last all day and overnight with always on display+afib/HRV monitoring; and it charges fast enough I can get close to 100% in the shower, meaning it effectively does not have battery issues.
As someone that has had heart issues, their continued improvements there will keep me a loyal customer for a very long time to come.
Its position as a health device is underrated in tech circles. As we tech savvy generations age there’s a big market there.
I have hearth issues too, and the metrics Apple provides still do not help detecting them. Not to mention that there is no improvement of their high blood pressure detection. So despite the marketing that they have the most accurate sensor, there is no real advancement here.
Relying on an Apple Watch instead of a proper medical device if you're having heart issues is, well, uh... There's a reason an Apple Watch isn't a medical device.
Consider for a moment that I and my doctor know my medical situation better than you do.
(it is, by the way, an FDA approved class 2 medical device…)
It puts the AI on its wrist or it gets the hose again.
Battery life is better.
> Longer Workout Battery Life and Faster Charging
Apple Watch Series 12 continues to offer up to 24 hours of everyday battery life9 and now offers up to 10 hours of battery life during an outdoor workout — 25 percent more than the previous model.10
—
An increase to 10 hours of workout tells me battery life is better, but maybe not “better enough” to give the 24 hour number an increase (or the higher HRV checking frequency is eating the rest of the gains)
No, it’s not. 24 hours is the same as series 11. And you are comparing to series 10, not 11, that already had this improvement. I do not work out 10 hours a day, so that number is literally meaningless/pointless.
The iPhone 18 Pro and the Airpods are equally dissapointing. Even the folding iPhone is nothing special.