Live Translation Coming to AirPods (www.macrumors.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by cantankerous_cashew@lemmy.world to c/apple_enthusiast@lemmy.world

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[-] makeshiftreaper@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

I don't have Apple products but I've been saying this is a feature I expected them to beat everyone else to. Honestly I thought we were going to see something like this back in 2023. I assumed it was going to require the newest iPhone, airpods, and an Apple AI subscription but if it works as well as Apple products tend to then I bet this will be incredible. Tapping your phone to someone else's, putting in some headphones and just talking in your own languages has been a sci-fi dream since the 40s. Combined with live translation of text you can already do in Apple Vision Pro, language barriers are going to start melting away

[-] rkcurio@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

Prior to the launch of ‌iOS 26‌, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said that the AirPods would get a translate feature for translating in-person conversations, and it looks like Apple is working on introducing it soon.

that's gonna be so so great, to be honest

[-] Slotos@feddit.nl 0 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, something tells me that’s gonna need a persistent internet connection.

[-] NutinButNet@hilariouschaos.com 1 points 2 weeks ago

I have some buds that do this and you have the ability to download languages for offline use and those work just fine.

Apple could do the same. They may not, but this is one of those features that needs offline use more than others. Some remote village where no cell towers exist, underground where no cell towers or satellite can penetrate and no WiFi exists, indoors where cell towers are difficult to penetrate and WiFi is not always an option…

Hopefully they will.

[-] Endmaker@ani.social 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

If it has to be live (i.e. works in real-time), doing the translation in a server elsewhere is probably a bad idea due to the latency.

It makes more sense to run an optimised translation model locally - ideally in the AirPods directly but if not, on the connected iPhone.

[-] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

There's no way airpods have the power or compute to do that (anytime soon). It'll be via phone or mac.

this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2025

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