Apple has temporarily disabled the Apple Watch’s Walkie-Talkie app over concerns someone could have used it to eavesdrop on your conversations.
That’s according to a report that the audio chats feature had a vulnerability that could allow a person to listen to another iPhone user’s device without consent.
Apple told TechCrunch on Thursday that it disabled the function to “quickly fix the issue.”
“We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and will restore the functionality as soon as possible,” the tech giant said in a statement to TechCrunch.
Apple could not be immediately reached for comment.
The tech company went on to say that there’s no evidence the vulnerability was ever exploited, and that it was made aware of the bug through its portal that allows users to report security issues.
Early Thursday morning, the Apple System Status page showed that Walkie Talkie was unavailable. The app will remain installed on the Watch until Apple releases the fix, and it won’t be functional until an update is released.
If the narrative sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because earlier this year, Apple’s Group FaceTime had a bug that went viral after allowing callers to listen in on unsuspecting recipients. Apple responded by taking Group FaceTime offline after the discovery of the vulnerability was reported.
