Apple, Google and Meta are trying to build the universal translator
Apple Airpods Pro 3 models are displayed during the “Kirping” event at the Steve Jobs Theater on the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, Cupertino, Cupertino on September 9, 2025, on September 9, 2025.
Nic Coury | AFP | Getty Images
For decades, novels such as “Star Trek” and novels such as “The Hitchhikers Galaxy Guide” exhibited fictional universal translators that can transform any language into English and reversed.
Now, these tools, which were once limited to science fiction works, are close to reality.
During the iPhone opening event on Tuesday, Apple He included a video of many travelers dream scenarios. In an anonymous Spanish -speaking country, he showed an English -speaking tourist buying flowers. Florist addressed tourists Spanish, but what the tourist heard was clear, consistent English.
“Today, all red carnations are 50% discount,” he heard English on his headphones, in fact clerk talking.
The video was the marketing material for Apple’s latest AirPods Pro 3, but feature is one of the types of technology companies, including Google Parent. Alphabet And MetaFacebook and Instagram.
Apple introduces live translation to AirPods.
Courtesy: Apple
Technological developments encouraged with Openai’s arrival in the late 2022 of the Chatgpt launched the age of productive artificial intelligence. Almost three years later, these developments result in real -time language translators.
Live translation for Apple is an important sales point for the company’s AirPods Pro 3, which is announced on Tuesday. The new $ 250 headphones are available next week, and with live translation, users will immediately hear that French, German, Portuguese and Spanish are translated into English. Live translation will also come to AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2 on Monday.
And when two people talk to each other Airpod, the conversation can be translated in both ways at the same time in each user’s headphones. In Apple’s video demo, two people who talked to each other in different languages looked like.
Live translation will not initially be present in the European Union. Apple support page. Policy The EU first reported its restriction.
Analysts are excited that the feature can progress one step for Apple’s AI strategy. The translation feature needs to be matched with a new iPhone to run Apple’s AI software package Apple Intelligence.
“If we can really use AirPods for live translations, this is actually a feature that will allow people to raise,” Davidson analyst Gil Luria told CNBC. He said. Wednesday.
The translation emerges as an important battlefield in the technology industry, as AI has become good enough to translate languages when people speak.
But Apple is not alone.
The host Jimmy Fallon holds the Pixel 10 Pro Fol phone during the ‘Google By Made’ event, which was held on August 20, 2025 to introduce the latest additions to Google’s Pixel Device Portfolio in the United States.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
A crowded market
Last year, Google and Meta also released hardware products with real -time translation features.
Google’s Pixel 10 phone has a feature that can turn what a speaker said to the listener’s language during the phone calls. This feature called Voice Translat is also designed to maintain the sound bending of the speaker. Voice Translate will begin to appear on people’s phones through a software update on Monday.
In August, Google was able to translate a sentence from the entertainer Jimmy Fallon to Spanish, and it was actually a comedian. Apple’s feature does not try to imitate the user’s voice.
Meanwhile, Meta, Ray-Ban meta glasses in May, a person using the speakers of the device can translate what they say in another language, and the other side in the speeches, the user’s phone can see translation answers.
CNBC, CNBC reported in August, Meta will organize its own product opening speech on Wednesday. It is not clear whether Meta will explain more translation features.
Meta worker Sara Nicholson poses with Ray-Ban sunglasses at the Meta Connect annual event in Menlo Park, California, Menlo Park.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
And in June Smart Voice Auxiliary Mode for Chatgpt This has liquid translation as one of the many features. Chatgpt is integrated with Apple’s Siri, but not in sound mode. Openai plans to publish new hardware products with Apple’s former design Guru Jony Ive in the coming years.
The rise of live translation can also reshape all industries. Translators and Translators are the number one type of job threatened by AI and 98% of translators’ business activities coincide with what AI can do, Microsoft research work Posted in August.
PURPOSE TRANSFERS
In the last few years, by taking advantage of global high -speed cellular service and using pock -like devices or headphones with a translation for a few hundred dollars, using online translation services to produce a number of purposeful translation gadgets entered the market.
“What I like what Apple is doing is the fact that I just illuminates the fact that a problem is, çalış he said, Japan -based Cutalk’s US General Manager Joe Miller, who speaks in different languages and translated his speeches in the sound and text, making a $ 299 translation device.
Considering Apple’s large scale and Apple’s only 18 million sets of wireless headphones in the first quarter, According to CanalysThe company’s entry to the market will expose a wider customer subset to the improvements of translation technology in recent years.
Although Apple enters the market, the focus of the devices for purpose, their focus on linguistics and linguistics will provide better translations than the present with a new phone.
Aleksander Alski, President of the US and Canada for Vasco Electronics based on Polish -based Vasco Electronics, which can mimic the sound of the user, such as Google’s feature, said, “We actually hired linguists,” he said. “We have combined artificial intelligence with human entry and thanks to it, we were able to provide much higher accuracy in all the languages we offer.”
There is also the advantage of home field. Apple, Vasco Electronics’ largest market is Europe and Apple’s live translation is not available for EU users, on the Apple website.
Some products introduced by technology companies are less than universal and are limited to a small number of languages for now. Apple’s feature is only available in 5 languages, against 95 of Pocketalk.
Miller from Pocketalk believes that the potential of technology goes far beyond a tourist in France. He says it is the most powerful when used in workplaces such as privacy and security characteristics that require privacy and security features that go beyond what Apple and Google provides.
“This is not about luxury tourism and travel, Mil Miller said. “This is about the intersection of language and friction when a discussion needs to be made.”
Apple did not respond to the request for comments.
WRISTWATCH: If AirPods Live translation features work, AI is a breakthrough, says Davidson’s Luria
