Apple Watch Series 12 unveiled with clever way to recover conversations you didn't hear

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Apple's biggest feature upgrades focus on health, AI, and battery life

Apple has unveiled two new smartwatches — the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 — and the company's biggest upgrades are focused on health, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and battery life.

Both models introduce a new Health Sensing System powered by Apple's S11 chip, designed to bring more frequent heart-rate tracking, smarter fitness insights, and a new Readiness score designed to tell you how prepared your body is for the day.

There's also a new suite of AI-powered audio features, including a clever way to catch up on conversations you might have missed, while the Ultra 4 gets enough battery life meant to handle some of your longest workouts.

Here's everything that has been packed into the new wearables.

The Series 12 and Ultra 4 have been built to take a heart-rate reading every five seconds throughout the day. Apple has also completely redesigned the optical and electrical heart sensors inside both watches to make this possible.

The watches are also meant to pay much closer attention to heart-rate variability (HRV), which can provide clues about your body's stress and recovery. HRV has been measured up to 24 times more frequently than before, with Apple splitting the information into two readings — one focused on daily recovery and another designed to provide a broader picture of your cardiovascular health.

Similar to the Oura Ring, your Apple Watch looks at things such as your recent activity, training load, vital signs, and sleep before giving you a score from 0 to 10.

You'll then get a recommendation — either Recover, Pace Yourself, Ready, or Go For It. Instead of trying to work out whether you're actually recovered from yesterday's workout, your watch can give you a quick indication of how hard you should push today.

And the score isn't fixed for the rest of the day. It can change as your activity and vital signs change, meaning a particularly tough workout could affect your recommendation later on. This is ideal, as your watch considers more real-time measurements to give you the most accurate readings.

Called Audio Intelligence, the new suite uses the Apple Watch's microphone, S11 chip, and Apple Intelligence on your iPhone to make sense of sounds and conversations around you. It includes several different features, from identifying music with Shazam to summarising conversations with Siri.

One of those features is Live Rewind, which is designed specifically for those moments when you didn't hear or understand something someone just said.

For example, if you're having a conversation in a noisy restaurant and miss the last few words, double-press the Digital Crown and Live Rewind can show you the previous 15 seconds of conversation as text on your wrist. So rather than Audio Intelligence being a separate feature from Live Rewind, think of it as the umbrella technology powering a collection of audio tools, with Live Rewind being one of them.

There's also Siri Recap, which can summarise conversations and pull out key points, allowing you to review the important details later without having to stop and take notes.

Apple is also making the watch more useful for wearers who are deaf or hard of hearing. For instance, Sound Recognition can detect noises including sirens, doorbells, and crying babies, then alert you on your wrist.

And if you're wondering what song is playing in the background, Shazam — the app that can automatically identify music — will now display results right on your wrist.

The Apple Watch Series 12 still offers up to 24 hours of battery during regular use, but outdoor workouts can now last for up to 10 hours. That's a 25% improvement over the previous generation.

Charging is meant to be quicker, too. Just 15 minutes on the charger is designed to provide up to 12 hours of battery life.

Apple says the Ultra 4 goes considerably further, offering up to 50 hours of everyday use on a single charge.

For particularly long adventures, its Max Extended Workout mode can track runs, walks and hikes for up to 45 hours. That's enough battery to cover a 100-mile race without needing to stop and recharge.

The Series 12 will be available in aluminium, titanium, and a new ceramic finish, while the Ultra 4 keeps its rugged titanium construction and comes in natural and black finishes.

Prices for the Apple Watch Series 12 start at $399 in the US, whereas the Apple Watch Ultra 4 starts at $799. Both will begin shipping on September 18.