Apple launches Apple Watch Series 12

Audio Intelligence is AI-powered ‘ambient listening’ that you can schedule to take notes for you.

Apple announced the Apple Watch Series 12 at its September 9th launch event, with Siri AI-powered Audio Intelligence as the highlight feature. The new abilities include a Live Rewind feature that allows users to view a transcript of the last 15 seconds of recently detected audio and view a text transcript of it on their watch by double-pressing its Digital Crown button. There’s also a Siri Recap feature that uses “ambient listening” to take notes on audio from your watch, with summaries in the Siri app.

The Live Rewind and Siri Recap features will be available in beta later this year on both the Watch Series 12 and Watch Ultra 4, in English at first. This support page describes how they’re activated and Apple’s approach to privacy.

The new watch is powered by a new S11 chip and comes in space gray, black, light gold, and dark bronze aluminum, as well as radiant gold and natural titanium and night blue and pearl white ceramic. Apple says that battery life during outdoor workouts has increased by 25 percent to 10 hours, while faster charging can now add up to 12 hours of battery life in 15 minutes.

The Watch Series 12 starts at $399 for the aluminum version, $699 for titanium, and $899 for ceramic, and launches September 18th, with preorders starting today. It will also be available through the Apple Upgrade leasing program with 12- and 24-month leases starting at $11.99 per month.

While the Series 12 didn’t get any major design changes, the aluminum version now has Ceramic Shield 2, which Apple says is “tougher than any smartwatch glass and 60 percent tougher than the Ion-X of previous aluminum models.”

The Series 12 also features new optical and electrical heart sensors that now support continuous background heart rate sensing with readings taken every five seconds, 60 times more than before, and now includes support for perimenopause and menopause in the Cycle Tracking feature. The Health app has been redesigned with new tabs for Insights and Longevity that track information like Health Age, a feature that lays out your metrics compared to your chronological age.

Apple also says that with the iPhone Camera and your Apple Watch, it can take “in-depth physical assessments” of your flexibility, strength, and balance, while analyzing the videos privately using on-device AI. A VO2 max assessment is also available if you have an Apple Watch and the AirPods Pro 3 or third-party heart rate sensing hardware.

Last year’s Series 11 , which also launched at $399 with 42mm and 46mm sizes, added 5G, hypertension monitoring, a sleep score feature, stronger Ion-X glass, and improved battery life. It was also Apple’s slimmest smartwatch to date when it was announced, measuring 9.7mm thick.

The new watch is among the first products launched under Apple’s new CEO, John Ternus , who stepped in for Tim Cook on September 1st. Ternus directly oversaw development of previous Apple Watches as Apple’s head of hardware engineering before becoming the company’s CEO.

The launch also follows a wave of price hikes earlier this year that impacted nearly all of Apple’s products, although not its smartwatches — the Apple Watch has consistently started at $399 for several years now.

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