Ever since the early days of Star Trek there has been a sci-dream of a Universal Translator that lets us all chat together, no matter our native tongue. That dream could become a reality with iOS 19 and AirPods.
According to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, we can expect this live translation feature to appear with iOS 19, which will be leveraged by the AirPods.
It’s unclear at this early stage if this will be a feature for the current AirPods or if this will launch with the new AirPods Pro 3 that are also expected to arrive later this year.
What is clear is that you will be able to listen, while wearing your AirPods, and have Apple translate live.
How does live translation work?
The idea here is for the AirPods to pick up the audio in the room, using far field microphones and feed that to the connected iPhone.
The iPhone will do the grunt work of processing what’s being said in one language, translating it into the wearer’s native tongue, and playing that over the AirPods, live.
Usefully, this works both ways, allegedly. That will mean if the wearer answers in their native tongue, the iPhone will say it over the speaker in the other person’s own language.
So, in theory, the two should be able to have a relatively natural back and forth, without needing to understand each other’s language.
What’s not clear is if this will happen natively on the phone, or if it will require an internet connection. Presumably it will need a network connection, so having a decent one to ensure there is a lack of lag should be integral.
When will live translation come to AirPods?
Rumours suggest that this live translation feature will come as part of the next iOS 19 update. This is expected to be announced and launched in Apple’s usual cycle, meaning at WWDC 2025 in June.
