With the release of AirPods Pro 3, Live Translation also comes to AirPods, making face-to-face conversations easier by helping users connect even if they don’t speak the same language. But, the feature won’t be coming to the EU right at launch.
For users outside of the EU, Live Translation enables in-person communication across select languages and is available in beta. This transformational, hands-free capability is powered by computational audio and Apple Intelligence to help people easily connect — whether they’re traveling to a new place, collaborating at work or school, or simply catching up with the people who matter most.
Live Translation helps users understand another language and communicate with others by speaking naturally with AirPods. To interact with someone who doesn’t have this hands-free capability, there’s an option to use iPhone as a horizontal display, showing the live transcription of what the user is saying in the other person’s preferred language. When the other person responds, their speech is translated into the user’s preferred language with AirPods.
It’s even more useful for longer conversations when both users are wearing their own AirPods with Live Translation enabled from their iPhone. ANC on AirPods lowers the volume of the other person speaking so that it’s easier to focus on the translation while staying connected in the interaction.
Live Translation on AirPods is available in English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish, and will be coming to four more languages by the end of the year: Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (simplified).
On its official page detailing the features available on iOS 26, the company said EU residents or those with EU Apple IDs won’t be able to use live translation, which is powered by Apple Intelligence and will also be coming to AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2.
This is likely due to the EU’s stringent rules around user data protection, outlined in laws such as the GDPR and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), as well as the EU AI Act, which is currently being rolled out.
Apple had to delay the release of some AI features in the EU due to these regulations last year, with users in the EU getting access to some features only in March 2025.
MacDailyNews Take: If the EU wants to over-regulate, it should expect delays.
As we wrote long ago:
[W]e usually prefer the government to be hands-off wherever possible, Laissez-faire… Regulations are static and the marketplace is fluid, so extensive regulations can have unintended, unforeseen results down the road. – MacDailyNews, June 9, 2006
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