The Apple Watch Series 12 launch was overshadowed by controversy surrounding two unreleased audio features—Siri Recaps and Live Rewind—that use the device's microphone to capture environmental sound and deliver transcripts or summaries. Despite worthwhile upgrades including redesigned health sensing, new gesture controls, a revived Ceramic case option and improved battery life, these features captured the headlines, with Apple emphasising privacy through its new S11 chip and dedicated Secure Exclave component. The company's decision to delay these features until an unspecified "later this year" kept them from the reviewer's hands during testing.

After seven days with the Series 12, the reviewer focused on features actually available to test: two of the four Audio Intelligence tools (faster Shazam and Sound Recognition) work on the device now. The Secure Exclave functions as a hardware-isolated processor component where raw audio is buffered and interpreted, enabling private processing of audio data. The improved Shazam widget displays song and artist information on the smart stack, though it exhibited minor quirks during testing. Sound Recognition allows users to monitor for specific sounds like alarms and appliance beeps, though the running water detection proved overly sensitive, triggering notifications repeatedly in bathrooms.