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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
by ProfessorLayton 24d ago
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.
- jjcob 24d agoI wonder if this feature will make people wary of Apple watch wearers.
- arrowleaf 24d agoI 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
- tpmoney 24d ago“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.
- matthewfcarlson 24d agoThat's a good point, anyone with a smart phone could trivial have a voice recorder going all day and run it through whisper
- gumby271 24d agoIt 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!
- quietsegfault 23d agoGood. Don’t say things around me, an Apple Watch wearer, that you don’t want getting out.
- mikeocool 24d agoYeah, 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.
- deleted 24d ago[deleted]
- tshaddox 24d agoIn 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.
- saagarjha 24d agoIt keeps information on what they said?
- tshaddox 24d ago15 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.
- deleted 24d ago[deleted]
- codercotton 24d agoIt also does not identify individual speakers.
- saagarjha 23d agoThere are two features, you have listed one of them.
- generalizations 24d agoIt'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.
- Razengan 24d agoThis is a step down the road to having an AI "presence" or entity that's always digesting sensory data, just like a human.
- xattt 24d agoMarital strife is a few years out from getting a lot more evidence-based.
- quietsegfault 23d agoGood. I wish we had the “home stenographer” sketch from the Chapelle Show in real life. Now we do. https://youtu.be/tEBYHHiQ4ps https://youtu.be/tEBYHHiQ4ps
- LeoPanthera 24d agoApple 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.
- mikeocool 24d agoPeople 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.
- wang_li 24d agoAnd a crime in plenty of states. It shouldn't be, but it is.
- shagie 24d agoIt'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.
- mikeocool 24d agoIt also summarizes your full conversations.
- nomel 24d agoNo, 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).
- revolvingthrow 24d agoWhile 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.
- gumby271 24d agoThere'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.
- phoghed 24d agoApple 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.
- nickthegreek 24d agoYou and I must have very different conversations with people that we trust to respond in such a way.
- tomwphillips 24d agoThe 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.
- parl_match 24d agoIt feels like a made for TV ad for accessibility.
- shagie 24d agohttps://youtu.be/Pe2ugye7Ya4?si=qhGPselIm7sZkXyP&t=558 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.
- asafira 24d agoHas he tried these? https://www.fortell.com/ https://www.fortell.com/ Or are they the directional ones you were referring to?
- shagie 24d agoHe 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.
- clint 24d agoYou 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%
- lotsofpulp 24d agoIt’s great for exposing people abusing their authority by making off the record demands that they know are not kosher.
- jiggawatts 24d ago“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.
- ProfessorLayton 24d agoSo I took issue with the automated note taking of conversations and didn't mention audio recordings. No mention of using Google or Facebook either.
- jiggawatts 24d agoHow 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).
- gumby271 24d ago> 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.
- CrimsonRain 24d agoYou can simply not talk if you don't want people to listen?
- encomiast 24d agoI think most people want to talk and have only the person they are talking to listen.
- xp84 24d agoI 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.
- CrimsonRain 24d agohmm. 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...
- NoLinkToMe 24d agoYeah 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.
- mort96 24d agoIt'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.
- ricardobeat 24d agoThere'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
- consumer451 24d agoMy 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://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49427928 - https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/ https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/
- qgin 24d agoIt 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.
- deleted 24d ago[deleted]
- consumer451 24d agoWhile 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,activated,-%2E https://support.apple.com/en-us/148354#:~:text=Audible,activ...
- sneak 24d agoThe 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.
- consumer451 24d agoAs 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,sensitive,-%2E https://support.apple.com/en-us/148354#:~:text=app%2E-,How,s...
- varispeed 24d agoIt will stop arguments between partners "you said this week ago, now you say this" okay honey, let's compare our transcripts.
- xp84 24d agoLooking forward to it!
- enlightens 24d agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_of_Fact,_the_Truth_of_Feeling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_of_Fact,_the_Truth_o... Ted Chiang (author of Arrival) wrote about this
- nonninz 24d agoThis is exactly the plot of the Black Mirror episode "The entire history of you" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089050/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089050/
- quietsegfault 23d agohttps://youtu.be/tEBYHHiQ4ps https://youtu.be/tEBYHHiQ4ps Home stenographer!
- discostrings 24d agoMore 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 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49634947
- neilv 24d ago> 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.
- concinds 24d agoSame. I hope Apple doesn't kill AirPods for me the same way they just did the Apple Watch. I like those.
- concinds 23d agoWanted to add: the Watch has been off my wrist since the announcement, will be sold this week.
- vablings 23d agoThis seems like a huge overreaction. I really don't get what the big deal is here? Are people worried about Apple snooping on conversations? They already have enough iPhone to track any device in the world with the AirTag network? Not to mention every phone has like 3 microphones lol Are you worried about malicious actors snooping on conversations? They have always already been able to do that longer than I have been alive and a transcription app isn't going to change that
- socalgal2 24d agoYou 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
- Gareth321 24d agoI 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).
- concinds 24d agoI 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.
- Gareth321 24d ago> 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.
- bhelkey 23d agoWill the watch only record conversations in public? There is nothing I see in the press release about that.
- 2III7 23d agoWhy 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.
- jliptzin 23d agoBetween flock, meta glasses, and this, you just have to assume you are always being recorded 24/7
- dubeye 23d agoits' something older people want. that's where the demographics are going. people with faded hearing and memories
- LW0011 23d agoNote that Apple's gyrations trying to claim they are not recording are basically nonsense. Not retaining the actual audio data does not alter the fact that they are collecting and processing and then retaining processed data. Perhaps even more telling is that typically in states with 2-party (all-party) consent laws, both recording and eavesdropping are covered. Clearly the watch and AI are eavesdropping in this case.
- kazinator 23d agoYou could easily be recorded by someone surreptitiously using a microcasette voice recorder from 1990.
- gloosx 22d agoNot sure if that's something most people want, but it seems it's definitely something most big tech execs see as the most brilliant idea ever. This reminds me of microsoft recall story, but under the apple sauce;)