Apple Watch Series 12 & Ultra 4 revealed with new Audio Intelligence features

• News

The next line of Apple Watches will come with some new accessibility features.

Ozzie Mejia September 9, 2026 11:09 AM Apple 1

As part of Wednesday's Apple Event, Apple has unveiled its newest line of smartwatches. The Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 won't reinvent the wheel in terms of design, but they'll have some interesting new features that may put it a big step ahead of their predecessors. This includes new Audio Intelligence features and features to aid older users.

The Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4's Audio Intelligence features will include sound recognition, allowing the devices to memorize specific sounds. More interestingly, the watches will be actively listening in order to feed a live rewind feature that allows users to rewind their conversation up to 15 seconds earlier. Live transcriptions of those ongoing conversations will be available for a short time, which could prove as handy as it is troubling. Audio Intelligence will also feed Siri recaps, which can summarize meetings based on audio notes.

The new Apple Watch lines will also amplify existing features meant to aid older users. Heart rate data will be recorded every five seconds. A user's heart rate variability (HRV) will also be measured every five minutes. The Apple Watches will use this data to feed its readiness data for individual users.

The new Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 will run on the Apple S11 chip. Both will be available on September 18 with pre-orders opening up today. The Series 12 will sell for $399 USD and the Ultra 4 will sell for $799, maintaining its pricing structure from the previous Apple Watch line. No price hike... at least not yet.

Shacknews staff does not use generative artificial intelligence (AI) in their content. Shacknews strictly prohibits the use of its content for AI training or to generate text, including text in the style or format used for this publication. Shacknews reserves all rights to this work.

Ozzie Mejia Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?

Filed Under

Login / Register