IOS 19 May Add Live Translation for AirPods
If you have a pair of AirPods , you might be getting a pretty futuristic update later this year. That is, unless you’re a former Google customer—otherwise, this will feel like old news.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman , Apple is working on a live translation feature for AirPods with the release of iOS 19 . Gurman’s sources seem to be staying tight-lipped as the feature is still fairly secret, so it’s unclear exactly which AirPods models will be compatible with the feature if it arrives with the update. But given that most of the new AirPods features these days seem to be available on the second-generation AirPods Pro , I’m guessing it will be these new items – perhaps the AirPods 4 if Apple is feeling generous. (Hope the AirPods Max are lucky.)
Gurman’s sources have outlined roughly how the feature will work: When someone speaks to you in another language, your AirPods will translate their words into your target language. Then, when you speak back, your iPhone will translate back into the other person’s language and read the words out loud.
Apple is not the first company to release such a feature. In fact, Google Pixel Buds have supported live translation through the Conversation mode in the Translate app for years . If you have the right headphones and an Android phone, you can open the Translate app and ask the Pixel Buds to help you translate something into another language. This will automatically switch to conversation mode: when the other person answers, Pixel Buds will play the translation in your ear.
Of course, the Pixel Buds don’t require conversation mode to work. You can rely on your phone’s speaker to achieve the same result. But it’s great that you can hear the translation in your ear and understand what the other person is saying.
It’s not clear from Gurman’s limited information whether Apple’s feature will work in the same way through its own Translate app. The fact that your iPhone will speak a translation for your side of the conversation is similar to how Google handles the feature, so it’s likely that you’ll want to have the Translate app open so that your AirPods can translate what the other person is saying, too. The Apple app also has its own conversation mode, so just like on Android, you can already use the live translation experience on iPhone. Give it a try if you want to get a feel for what this experience could be like when (or if) it comes to AirPods.
Apple will likely unveil iOS 19 and all its new features in June at WWDC. The company will then conduct a summer beta test of the software before releasing it to compatible iPhones in the fall.