If you were genuinely remotely hacking a smartwatch, you’d be executing background processes to exfiltrate data entirely invisible to the user, not doing some bizarre remote desktop thing randomly tapping around on apps. The claim doesn’t pass the sniff test irrespective of the manufacturer.

Unless the attack vector is the "screen mirroring" feature of the Apple Watch? https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/watch/apd890848603/wat...

It’s because a lot of people on HN have dealt with bug reports from users that were clearly fabulations after investigating thoroughly

I had been locked out of iPhone in my pocket in hot summers due to presumably ghost touches. Maybe people know it happens with Apple products.

Exactly. This comment section really is a display of the Apple bias on HN.

I don't doubt that this might be nothing, but seeing all these commenters completely dismissing it is rather odd.

Hopefully Apple is less dismissive of this potential security issue.

You're correct and being downvoted for it.

Even if this is not a "hack" it's still something apple should be taking seriously since it's something its users can clearly panic about.

It might be a hardware fault, though getting apple to admit that is like finding an upvoted post on HN critical of apple.

Many commenters might be confident because they are familiar with the device, its security and perhaps even development for it.

If this is a software (or somehow even a hardware) issue, than it's still not positive for Apple.

I would have said the same thing if it wasn't for the recording in the forums which shows it pretty clearly as "random touches".

I do not believe the comments would read any different if it was an android watch

If you have access to control the touch interface or to type a message on the screen you already have full control to the device. Look at the video, the input is so random, it's a software bug.

From experience, you really can't just take user reports at face value. There's almost always something there, but it may or may not be what the user thinks it is.

So it's a good idea to apply Occam's razor.

Digitizer/ghost touch is probably the simplest explanation.

The only thing the hacked/pwned idea has going for it is the "We are in control" message, which is still a bit marginal if the watch really was hacked. (None of the other posts mention this and why would a hacker type that message in? Could be because it's a practical joke or maybe part of a phishing attack, but those are tenuous and nothing else mentioned supports those.)

iOS developers who have done work for watchOS know that, during development, you are barely able to connect an Apple Watch to Xcode. It is flaky as hell. So thinking that someone can remotely control an Apple Watch is a bit hard to believe.

Ghost touches and typing "we are in control" with predictive text, sounds more plausible but still raises an eyebrow.