Apple would kindly like to stay far away from Meta’s ongoing reputational challenges with AI glasses.
Apple CEO John Ternus was recently asked about how the company thinks about privacy in the age of AI wearables in light of backlash around AI glasses like Meta’s. After all, Apple is rumored to be cooking up some AI glasses of its own in its labs.
“I know you can’t talk about unannounced products, but what do you think about the backlash around what people are calling, you know, ‘pervert glasses,'” Tom’s Guide editor in chief Mark Spoonauer asked.
Before Ternus could answer, Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing who also being interviewed, quipped: “That’s quite a marketing slogan.” The remark drew laughter from Ternus.
Meta is actively fighting back at that perception with a marketing blitz that emphasizes the AI glasses’ light that alerts people when the recording feature is activated. It’s also taken steps to thwart users who tamper with that light and pledged to remove “harassing” videos recorded by the AI glasses from Instagram (Business Insider has found those moderation efforts are off to a bumpy start.) Meta declined to comment on the Apple executives’ remarks.
Beyond some laughter at a rival’s expense, the pair of Apple execs instead looked to explain how the company hopes to address privacy concerns when it releases two new AI-enabled listening features alongside the next generation of Apple Watches.
“We wanted to do this in a way that people feel comfortable using it, and people around the user feel comfortable about its existence,” Ternus said.
While its first foldable phone, iPhone Duo, stole the show, Apple also announced that Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 will come with optional “audio intelligence” features that, depending on a user’s preference, can mean Siri is always listening to your conversations throughout the day. Apple says the features don’t start working until the on-device AI detects speech and that no audio is recorded or stored.
One feature, “Siri Recap,” can listen to meetings or even your whole day and generate what the company calls “high-level” notes on what happened. Another feature, Live Rewind, shows a text snippet of the last 15 seconds of what was just said around you on the Apple Watch’s screen.
Ternus and Joswiak emphasized that neither feature includes speaker attribution. There’s also no audio recording that the user could store for later playback. Apple also says it doesn’t have access to the raw audio files. Joswiak also said this means Apple can’t be compelled to turn over an audio file.
“It’s just those higher-level notes to remind you of that without getting into all the stuff that really is privacy concerning which a lot of other products are doing,” Joswiak said.
While they did not mention it, the Live Rewind feature also includes audio and visual cues on the Apple Watch’s screen — similar to the recording light on Meta’s AI glasses — to alert those around the watch wearer that the last 15 seconds of conversation is being processed. Apple says “Live Rewind” and “Siri Recap” will be available in beta later this year.
Both Apple execs also said that current apps have long allowed users to record themselves and those around them. While they didn’t mention anything in particular, AI-enabled apps and devices like Granola and Plaud are also designed for such use cases.
But the Apple execs’ response to the question highlights that Apple is seeking to differentiate its approach to information-gathering on AI devices. Whether or not people ultimately feel comfortable about Apple Watches listening in on their conversations is another question altogether.
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