Apple unveils Apple Watch Ultra 4

Apple today introduced Apple Watch Ultra 4, the ultimate sports and adventure watch, now with new health, fitness, and audio intelligence capabilities. Apple unveils Apple Watch Ultra 4. PRESS RELEASE September 9, 2026 Apple unveils Apple Watch Ultra 4 Featuring the new Health Sensing System, which provides the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable; powerful insights including readiness; and longer battery life Apple Watch Ultra 4, the ultimate sports and adventure watch, now includes new, advanced health and fitness features, and longer battery life.

Engineered with the new Health Sensing System and S11 chip, Apple Watch Ultra 4 delivers the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable, 1 higher-frequency heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV) measurements, and a new readiness score to support athletes of all kinds. Apple Watch Ultra 4 also offers extended battery life to track outdoor workouts for up to 45 hours and the most accurate on-device GPS in a sports watch. 2 A redesigned Health app on iPhone arrives later this year, including a new Longevity tab with a Health Age feature showing how metrics are tracking relative to a user’s age.

To powering the Health Sensing System, the S11 chip — Apple’s most powerful wearable chip — enables new Audio Intelligence features arriving later this year, to help users remember key moments from their conversations and stay alert to important sounds, built with privacy, security, and accessibility innovations at the core. 3 With watchOS 27, Apple Intelligence powers Siri AI on Apple Watch, bringing personal context understanding and broad world knowledge to the wrist. These features add to the many ways Apple Watch Ultra already supports users with advanced workout tracking across activities, sleep tracking, powerful health features like heart health notifications and the ECG app, 4 and game-changing safety capabilities like satellite communications.

Apple today announced "Audio Intelligence," a new suite of Apple Intelligence-powered features for the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 that use the built-in microphone to help users catch missed moments in conversation and stay aware of important sounds. The Apple Watch’s Audio Intelligence comprises four features: Siri Recap: Uses ambient listening to generate high-level notes from conversations, such as takeaways from a team meeting or a parent-teacher conference, producing an Apple Intelligence-generated title, summary, and key points reviewable in the Siri app.

Apple is launching an all-new set of features called Audio Intelligence, starting with today’s new Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4. The company details how the new feature works, especially around privacy, in a new paper.

Apple says it’s taking privacy concerns seriously with its new spyware feature for Watch Series 12. Apple Watch’s new Audio Intelligence enables a real-life conversation rewind.

Live Rewind: Lets users "go back in time for 15 seconds," transcribing and displaying what was just said in a conversation with a double press of the Digital Crown. Shazam: Automatically identifies music playing nearby and surfaces the song title and artist on the Music Recognition widget in the Smart Stack.

Apple details how Apple Watch’s new Audio Intelligence features work in privacy paper. Apple unveils foldable iPhone Duo Chance Miller Sep 9 2026.

This is by Apple’s own admission and it’s at the heart of the company’s new Audio Intelligence feature for Apple Watch Series 12, powered by the S11 chip. Using the Watch’s built-in microphone, Audio Intelligence constantly gathers aural information around the wearer, allowing them to rewind real-life scenarios, read transcriptions of conversations and get alerted to critical sounds like an alarm or a crying baby.

Sound Recognition: Brings sound alerts to Apple Watch for users who are deaf or hard of hearing, listening for sirens, alarms, doorbells, a baby crying, and more, even when their iPhone isn’t nearby. Apple emphasized that ‌Siri‌ Recap is opt-in and configurable, telling users they "control if and when ‌Siri‌ Recap takes notes." Users can set it to always listen or schedule it for specific contexts, such as only at work or never at night, and can toggle it on or off at any time from Control Center.

"Since Apple Watch is always on a user’s wrist, it is the perfect device to help users stay alert to important sounds and stay present and engaged in conversations throughout the day," Apple said in its Series 12 announcement post. "With the built-in microphone, the power of the S11 chip, the latest Apple Intelligence models on iPhone, and Private Cloud Compute, Apple Watch Series 12 offers a brand-new class of Apple Intelligence features." Audio Intelligence includes sound recognition, Live Rewind, Siri Recap and Shazam.

Apple reiterated that none of the Audio Intelligence features create or store audio recordings, with raw audio processed in an isolated Secure Exclave on the S11 chip and deleted immediately after use. Audio Intelligence and ‌Siri‌ AI both require an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone, with Live Rewind and ‌Siri‌ Recap limited to the iPhone 16 or later (excluding the iPhone 16e).

Sound recognition notifies users of important noises like sirens, alarms, doorbells or cries, and it works even when a user’s iPhone isn’t nearby. Live Rewind provides a transcription of the last 15 seconds of conversation on the Watch face, activated by double-pressing the Digital Crown.

The features arrive in beta later this year, starting in English, with additional languages to follow, and will not initially be available in the EU. Related Roundups: Apple Watch 11, Apple Watch Ultra 3 Tag: Apple Intelligence Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Don’t Buy), Apple Watch Ultra (Don’t Buy) Related Forum: Apple Watch This article, " Three All-New ‘Audio Intelligence’ Features Arrive With Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 " first appeared on com Discuss this article in our forums.