Apple equips its AirPods with translation in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German

New York.- Apple equips its AirPods with live translation in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German thanks to its new operating system, iOS 26, which launches this Monday on compatible devices. Starting today, the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4 with noise cancellation, paired with iPhones compatible with Apple Intelligence – Apple’s artificial intelligence – will be able to use the ‘Translate’ app on the iPhone to get live translations between English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.

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Users of the new AirPods Pro 3, which go on sale this Friday, September 19th, will also be able to enjoy this pioneering feature. According to EFE, the translation is delayed, which is normal in this type of technology, and makes some mistakes. Only one default voice – the same as Siri – can be chosen for the translation, even if you are trying to translate what more than one person is saying, which can be confusing. Other real-time translators, such as Google Pixel, can use a voice similar to the speaker. From a technological perspective, AirPods listen to what the other person says to you, that audio is sent to the iPhone, where AI models translate each sentence on the device and send the audio back to the AirPods. Furthermore, the conversation is never saved on the device. There is no need to have an internet connection to use this tool, as long as the user has previously downloaded the languages they want to use. Ideally, both parties in the conversation have AirPods, but it’s not necessary, as the new application displays the real-time transcription on the iPhone screen in both languages. Other languages such as Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, and Italian will be available at the end of this year.

The new AirPods Pro 3 with heart rate sensors

The new AirPods Pro 3 will go on sale on September 19 for $249, a device that features better noise cancellation, longer battery life, and improved water and sweat resistance. This new model has managed to improve its noise cancellation thanks to a new “multi-port acoustic architecture” and offering consumers five silicone and foam ear tips of different sizes to adapt to different ear shapes. The batteries of the new Pros can last eight hours of music playback with noise cancellation activated, compared to the six hours of the Pro 2 model. However, the new Pro charging case only offers 24 hours of listening, compared to the previous 30 hours. Another new feature is that each earpiece has a small sensor that emits an invisible infrared light to measure the pulse while the user is exercising, which, along with the Fitness ‘app’ (plus a new function in iOS 26), allows users to see their performance metrics in real time, such as heart rate or calories burned. Meanwhile, this new function offers information similar to that of a smartwatch and both devices can be used at the same time to monitor a sports activity.