[plausibility]

My understanding is it's like iPhone purchased in Japan always having the shutter noise no matter where they're taking a picture.

Apple Watches purchased and activated in USA after the patent lawsuit cut off date won't have the feature enabled, even if you travel or move.

[gwervc]

That's plain wrong. iPhone uses sim data or something to enable/disable that noise. Source: myself with two iPhones bought in Japan and used both there and in the EU.

[kalleboo]

This is a recent change, until about 3 iPhone models ago it worked how GP described it