- Live translation arrives on AirPods 4, Airpods Pro 2 and AirPods Pro 3
- Not available in Apple accounts based on EU at the EU
- Apple says that it is because of the EU regulations
One of the most impressive characteristics of the AirPods Pro 3 is the live translation, which offers a real -time translation between several different languages - in particular European languages at launch. But the functionality will not be really available for people who live in many of these countries.
It is also a blow for the AirPods 4 with the owners of ANC and AirPods Pro 2 who expected that the live translation arrives at their ears with the launch of iOS 26. And it is the own iOS 26 page of Apple which contains the bad news.
If you are in an EU country – the United Kingdom is therefore not affected – the functionality has been delayed. It still happens, said Apple. But that will not say when.
Why can’t Europeans use live to translate to the languages of their own country?
Here is what Apple has published:
“Apple Intelligence: Live translation with Airpods
Live translation with Airpods is not available if you are in the EU and your Apple country or region is also in the EU “
The first available languages are:
- English (United Kingdom)
- English (United States)
- French (France) – Not available in the EU
- German (Germany) – Not available in the EU
- Portuguese (Brazil)
- Spanish (Spain) – Not available in the EU
Addressing Techcrunch, Apple blamed the EU digital market law and its interoperability requirements; Apparently, speculation that delay was due to EU data protection regulations was incorrect.
The DMA is the same law that Apple declared responsible for delaying certain features of Apple intelligence for European users last year.
Apple and other technology giants are not big DMA fans. Under this legislation, Apple and Meta were struck by fines earlier this year – in the case of Apple, by not that the application developers indicate alternative offers outside the Apple App Store. Meta’s fine was to violate the DMA by combining their personal data from several services.
If you are of the cynical type, you might think that it is in the interest of Apple to make DMA appear badly on the voters of the EU, but whatever you think of the background, the big question is: when you get the live translation?
The short answer is that we do not know, but it is likely that it is months rather than weeks: the features of Apple’s Disloyed Apple Intelligence arrived in March 2025, five months after non-elevated customers obtained the whole collection in iOS 18.1.
