Apple announced two listening features for Apple Watch: Live Rewind and Siri Recap. They do different jobs from Hinokoe, and you can use them side by side.
What Apple says about its features
- Live Rewind shows a text snippet of the last 15 seconds of speech when you double-press the Digital Crown. It doesn't keep transcribing in the background, and snippets disappear about 30 seconds after the display dims unless you save them or ask Siri about them.
- Siri Recap takes notes on conversations during the day and creates high-level summaries. Apple says it doesn't produce a transcript, and summaries auto-delete after 7 days unless you save them.
- Neither feature creates or stores an audio recording, and neither attributes quotes to speakers.
- Both need Apple Watch Series 12 or Apple Watch Ultra 4, paired with iPhone 16 or later (Apple's list doesn't include iPhone 16e), and Apple Intelligence. Apple says they're coming in beta later this year, in English first, not initially in the EU, and not for users under 13.
What Hinokoe does
- Keeps your audio and a full, word-for-word transcript on your own devices, for as long as you choose.
- Labels who said what.
- Transcribes Mandarin, Cantonese, English and Japanese, even mixed in one sentence.
- Runs on every Apple Watch that can run watchOS 26: Series 6 and later, SE (2nd generation) and later, and every Ultra.
- Turns each day into a page of a book: one page a day, one volume a year.
- Your audio is never uploaded to our servers.
Which one fits you
If you want a quick look at what was just said, or short summaries that clear themselves, Apple's features are built for that. If you want to keep the day itself, the audio and every word, and come back to it later, that's what Hinokoe is for.