Wow Live Translation actually works on my AirPods

This fall, Apple gave iOS 26’s new live translation feature an immediate upgrade: support for AirPods. Like a real-life version of a Babel fish, compatible AirPods paired with a recent iPhone can now be inserted into the ear to provide instant fluency across nine languages.

The earbuds listen to conversation in Spanish, for example, use AI to translate it in real time, and speak the English equivalent directly into your ear. You then respond in English, and your iPhone will translate that back into Spanish. (The translation is displayed on the screen, but there’s a button to make it read it out loud.) It’s a tricky concept.

But it’s not new. Earbuds paired with Google Translate, like the Pixel Buds, were able to do this functionally Back in 2017. They weren’t great at it. As has often happened in the past, Apple is trying to take something other companies have done before, and do it better.

Did you succeed? Now that live translation has expanded to the EU with iOS 26.2, I set up a video call with a German-speaking colleague from Macwelt and used the AirPods Pro 3 to test the live translation feature (which is still officially in beta, I should point out) myself. I was pleasantly surprised.

Setting: Best in person

Let’s get started. First things first. Before doing any translation, you must download the language of your choice. This takes a few minutes, so try to plan ahead rather than waiting out the middle of a conversation with an angry French cop.

Open the Settings app on your connected iPhone and open the AirPods menu. Scroll down to Translation (beta) section and press Languages. At the top, you’ll see what you’ve already downloaded, while those that are available will be listed below. Select one (or more) and click to download.

Once that’s sorted, activating translation is relatively easy. Press and hold both legs of the earbud once, they will automatically switch to live translation mode. The only potential problem is if you downloaded multiple languages, especially if your last translation was to or from a different language than the one you want now. You can change it in the Translate app by going to He lives Then choose either of them Their language or Your language To switch languages. (There is still no option, as there is for the written and visual — but not conversational — functions of Google Translate, to say “language detection” and thus cover all the bases.)

So far, so good – and for face-to-face translation, activating the feature is simple and intuitive. However, you may encounter issues when trying to use the feature over an online video chat, as I did. The problem was that the AirPods were overly eager to automatically pair with whatever device they thought I was using. I needed to connect it to my iPhone to translate. But as soon as I started a FaceTime call on my Mac, they jumped on it. As soon as I opened the Notes app on my iPad to check text, they jumped at it. So I constantly had to fiddle with my Bluetooth settings to make sure my AirPods stayed in place.

It should be said, in Apple’s defense, that the company has granted live translation integration with FaceTime and phone apps, as well as providing APIs that will allow third parties to do the same with Zoom, Teams, and the like. So, this kind of multi-device hopping shouldn’t be necessary — you can just open FaceTime on your iPhone and manage the whole thing, both conversation and translation, from there. I found this integration simply unintuitive — moreover, I wanted to recreate the experience of talking to someone on the street, which seemed best emulated by holding up my phone in front of words coming from a different source.

Which is a long way of saying it, if you’re really talking to someone on the street, and if you’ve taken the time to set things up and test them beforehand, it should be easy. Just expect some technical hiccups when using multiple devices.

Understand what I was told

After finally getting set up, we were able to start our conversation. This was more stressful than I expected. I prepared four scenarios: in a hotel, in a restaurant, on a plane, and in a bar, with a secret bonus round where we would casually talk politics. But the conversations took longer than she expected, long until the restaurant and political conversations ran out of time and energy.

Why were the conversations slow and tiring? Because of the delay. My colleague would say a sentence in German, and the AirPods would generally wait until the sentence was over, and often until the very end, before starting to give me the translation. In written form, we are encouraged to be assertive, but conversational sentences can contain many subclauses, and so delay can be significant.

foundry

I wondered if this delay might have something to do with the grammatical character of the German language and its habit of moving decisive verbs to the end of the sentence. But a similar test with a Spanish speaker confirmed that the feature simply can’t convert the translation in real time, so there will be no fluency in your conversation, regardless of language.

The good news is that the accuracy of the direct translation, at least from German to English, is surprisingly good. While working as a hotelier, my colleague told me about the room arrangements, breakfast and a special event involving 237 Christmas tree vendors, and it was all clear and understandable. As a flight attendant, he explained landing times, delays and the situation to me with a man in my seat; Finally, he switched careers to bartending, telling me all the ingredients in a delicious local cocktail and stating the total amount I would need to pay for a selection of drinks. In each scenario, I easily understood the general gist and understood almost all the details.

This does not mean that the translation was flawless. The program was confused by the German term for boarding pass, which was translated as just “card.” My colleague told me that the name of the cocktail was distorted. But these were very minor quibbles that didn’t derail the conversation in any serious way.

Make myself understood

Ideally, you and your conversation partner should be wearing compatible AirPods so that your English is translated directly by their babel fish just as their non-English language is translated by you. For planned business meetings, this may be possible. But this is unlikely to be the case in a normal tourism context, so we stuck to the asymmetric approach.

After I waited for my colleague’s words to be translated, I answered him in English, and a German translation appeared on my iPhone screen. When speaking face to face, it may be easier to show this to the doctor/barber/policeman you are speaking to. There’s another slight delay while translating your words, but it shows up quickly enough. Once again, my colleague confirmed that the accuracy was excellent.

Next to each piece of translated text you’ll see a small play button, and if you click on it, it will be read aloud. This is a good option, and the tone was convincing in our testing, but it adds another delay to an already drawn-out process.

foundry

After he said his piece, my colleague had to wait for this to be translated, for me to respond this To be translated, for me to press the button, for the words to be read. Understandably, he started replying several times before reading my official translated response, though this should only be an issue when your partner actually speaks English, in which case you can do without the AirPods altogether.

Again, the translation was very reliable, although it was slow at times. I’ve been able to book rooms, request a sea view (and been refused, on the flimsy excuse that Munich is nowhere near the sea), order a wide range of drinks, navigate a variety of social situations and never have to repeat myself. My colleague was in a position to listen to both the English and German versions of every comment I made, and he was impressed by the accuracy.

Conclusion: Much better than I expected, flaws and all

Okay, final quibbles. The translations are broken down into small parts, and sometimes these seem quite arbitrary. I found myself pressing one piece, and the end of one thing and the beginning of another came out, rather than a coherent note. It also bothered me that the software deleted my chat history the moment I took out the headphones. This is especially annoying for a journalist who wants to publish screenshots in this feature, but it also removes a potentially useful note of details you might forget later. (Could this be a privacy-based decision? I’m not sure.)

Add to that the delays, and I’m the first to admit that my tests with live translation were by no means painful. In fact, I found the whole thing draining. But it was quite impressive nonetheless.

I was amazed by the program’s ability to translate with a very high degree of accuracy and understanding almost at present. Although you can’t expect fluent or socially comfortable conversation while using AirPods, you can expect very practical conversation. That’s a win, in my book.