When I first saw the Live Translation feature during yesterday's AirPods Pro 3 announcement, I asked myself a question. "Does this mean," I thought, "that if you want to have a conversation with someone else in two different languages without the need to pull my phone out, we both need AirPods Pro 3?"
So I did some digging, and after a visit to the Apple support page for Apple Intelligence, I discovered that no, you won't both need $249 worth of earbuds. Good news!
You can also use your existing AirPods 4 or AirPods Pro 2 models and order that delicious-looking paella with the unpronounceable name.
How does it work?
Because all the AI translation is handled by your iPhone, it's not reliant on any hardware inside AirPods Pro 3 specifically. The only thing you do need is a phone that supports Apple Intelligence — and then you'll be chatting in English, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish.
The AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4 will both work with Apple's latest AI feature. Should you come across someone in a foreign country, you won't lack for ways to have a chat.
Of course, if the person you meet doesn't have a pair of AirPods of any kind, then you can still use the Live Translation feature with just your phone. Your AirPods will play you the translated audio, and then your phone will show your conversation partner what you're saying.
Live Translation is available to try out now in Apple Intelligence, as long as you've got a supported OS like iOS 18.1 or later, iPadOS 18.1 or later and macOS Sequoia 15.1 or later.
Unless you're in the EU. No Live Translation for you.
