A preview of Live Rewind on Apple Watch.
Apple. (2026, September 9). Apple Event September 9 2026: Introducing iPhone Duo and more [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved September 9, 2026, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39BalPDuTo0
One of the announcements made today during Apple’s 2026 September Event was touting a new feature in the Apple Watch series 12 and Ultra 4: persistent recording and “Live Rewind.” This was demoed by an Apple Watch wearer at a restaurant fiddling with their watch after being given a rundown of available options by a waiter.
This gave me an immediate feeling of unease. In our brave new world of increasingly pervasive surveillance, I couldn’t help but cling to my first thought at the time: “A Flock camera on every wrist.” Surely Apple knows that this is a time when the public is incredibly attuned to stories about surveillance and being recorded without consent. So, I’m left wondering why they would choose to develop this feature at all. Part of me worries that it’s to head off OpenAI’s not-so-secret wearable project, and it smacks of previous always-on AI wearables that also gave me the ick.
Users can — luckily, in my opinion — opt out of this feature. However, my fear is that anyone wearing an Apple Watch will be met with immediate suspicion. How can your average non-tech-obsessed person know whether or not they can be safe speaking to you in confidence?
This is, of course, also setting aside the fact that if I were the food service worker in this demo, I’d be livid. If a customer at a restaurant I was waitering for had the fucking gall to check their watch and scroll back through what I just told them, I would probably want to hit them with a soap-laden sock. Simply ask me to repeat back what I said! I am a human being with dignity, and if you can’t engage with that simple piece of human interaction, then don’t go out in public! It’s weird!
Of course, I anticipate the argument from people who believe it doesn’t break the social contract to have an always-on recording device will be about “accessibility.” Either they will invent a deaf person who isn’t already using available accessibility tools who this will be life-changing for, or they will claim their uwu smol bean selves are simply too neurospicy to remember anything that’s said around them without a written record to look back on.
My response to them would be the same as to the rude diner at the table I’m trying to serve. Maybe I’d change out the soap for quarters.