The Audio Interruption
If you wear AirPods while using an Apple Watch, you may experience a highly intrusive feature called “Announce Notifications.” By default, whenever you receive a text message, an email, or a calendar alert, Siri will abruptly pause your music or podcast, drop the volume, and begin reading the incoming message aloud directly into your ears. If you are in the middle of an intense workout listening to heavy metal, or attempting to focus on a complex audiobook, having a robotic voice violently interrupt you to read a spam text message is incredibly jarring. You must completely disable the audio announcement engine.
How to Turn Off Announce Notifications
You can permanently sever Siri’s ability to read your messages via the central Settings app.
- Open the Settings app directly on your Apple Watch (the grey gear icon).
- Scroll down the main list and tap on Siri.
- Under the “Announce” section, tap on Announce Notifications.
- At the very top of the screen, locate the master toggle switch labeled Announce Notifications.
- Toggle this switch to the Off position (the green background will disappear).
Uninterrupted Audio
The change takes effect instantly. The Apple Watch will completely terminate the background text-to-speech rendering pipeline for incoming alerts. The next time you receive a text message while wearing your AirPods, Siri will remain completely silent. The watch will still physically vibrate on your wrist to let you know a message arrived, but your music or podcast will continue playing at full volume with zero interruptions.