Except this is where the Android brigade step in and say Live Translation is already available on Pixel and Galaxy phones
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
AirPods Live Translation Blocked for EU Users With EU Apple Accounts
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Not sure why EU citizens wouldn't given what it offers them compared to other nations.
What is odd is why Apple couldn't provide that feature in the EU when others can; it's almost as if they're either doing something fishy or as others have said, using it purely to **** stir the political pot 🤔
Yup and many other languages such as Estonian, Lithuanian are completely missing and since you're from Poland, Poland is missing many features too that are available on Android, such as news ec.
This sentence from the article sounds more reasonable than most comments here:
I guess it's a shame that it causes a delay, but I'm fine with big tech being checked.
I guess it's a shame that it causes a delay, but I'm fine with big tech being checked.
This is just completely made up. The only reason Apple is doing it, is because the EU forces them to make their features interoperable, ie. they would have to open their API so that other headphones can do the same.
Same story for iPhone mirroring, if they release it in the EU, they would have to open their API to android phones.
I’m glad the UK left the EU. Stuff like this is quite scary to see how the EU is abusing its power.
The Translate app is such a disaster that no one’s going to miss it. And if Apple wants to walk away from it, competitors will easily take over.
Honestly, it’s a non-issue.
Honestly, it’s a non-issue.
Sure, that’s better: are you excited about giving your government full access to your data? (Genuine question)
The problem is getting clarity on what the EU will consider as acceptable under EU law. Apple may simply want to avoid yet another back and forth over compliance with things like data privacy. It could also be that rules requiring interoperability that would allow competitors access to Apple's translation technology made Apple decide to not offer it in the EU. In both cases it would be a decision driven by EU regulations.
It's hard to say. Apple may have taken a much stricter approach to deciding what is required for compliance and decided to avoid any potential issues; or didn't want to give others access to tehir technology if the EU decided Apple had to under the regulations.
I suspect we'll see more of this, to EU user detriment. It could go beyond Apple's tech as well, to third parties as well that may build upon Apple's solution but can't offer the same functionality in the EU becasue the features aren't avaiable on the iPhone.
Europe is an embarrassing country. In the short future it will become the new third world.
I'm not happy it won't be available in my country but... who would care, Apple ignores the Polish language in all of its services and features anyway.
They have been brainwashed to believe that the EU cares about their data safety and privacy.
None of them care, that's the neat part. It's just that one will pretend to care (EU) and the others are blatant (US, China).
I understand those who are sensitive with their data but I'm not. I don't care how my personal data are used as I find the benefits of sharing them better than protecting my privacy.
Shouldn't there be an option for those who don't need these protections? EU's protections here are overracrching to some who simply want the option.
My partner speaks English and Spanish, but converses with his friends a lot by phone in Spanish, as well as his family. His family here in Australia also speak English, but it’s natural for them to default sometimes. I recently had two days in Bali with my mother in law, solo, who speaks no English, and hoped the feature would be available by the time we left. So it was an exercise in finding suitable apps and solutions that worked between us. On the flip side, I’m studying Spanish.
Europe is not a country.
I hope Apple knows that Switzerland is not part of the EU!
I strongly suspect that this will be advertised as something the phone can "do," but it will still be a massive failure.
Think of how many times your phone/homepod/etc. misunderstands the words you say.
It's even funnier when you consider that the base word in the conversation is "translate" instead of "interpret." (Translation is for written documents. Interpretation is for spoken word, and is significantly more difficult.)
I can see so many things going wrong with this, and quickly.
People should not be jumping up and assuming that they're being denied an "awesome" service. Translation and interpretation are not easy things to do. And while it's true that technology is "better than nothing" when there's no alternative, if and when the technology makes a mistake, there will not be an easy way for consumers to know the mistake is occurring.
Case in point—I was watching a student use AI to cheat on his math homework during one of my classes. He took a photo of geometrical line segments (what is the value of AC if AB is 10.6 and BC is 15.8?)...
The photo he took misinterpreted the number "5" as a number "7." He input the wrong answer into his test and wasn't able to figure out why, for several minutes, he had the wrong answer. This was a high school student.
Now take this and amplify it on the level of language. Without even considering dialectal differences between users, how are we going to be confident that a smart device will be able to recognize the difference between the word "sea" and "mother" in a different language, before it's translated into English?
This was like when some tech guy attempted to impress us with live translation in front of an entire professional development group, only for him to be embarrassed when the translation program turned "Hello, my name is _________" into "I'm going to kill you" (I'm not kidding, this actually happened with a bilingual English/Spanish speaker at my job at professional development).
People need to be careful before completely throwing themselves into trusting "translation"/interpretation tech. There is a reason why humans need to check the work produced by the tech.
Think of how many times your phone/homepod/etc. misunderstands the words you say.
It's even funnier when you consider that the base word in the conversation is "translate" instead of "interpret." (Translation is for written documents. Interpretation is for spoken word, and is significantly more difficult.)
I can see so many things going wrong with this, and quickly.
People should not be jumping up and assuming that they're being denied an "awesome" service. Translation and interpretation are not easy things to do. And while it's true that technology is "better than nothing" when there's no alternative, if and when the technology makes a mistake, there will not be an easy way for consumers to know the mistake is occurring.
Case in point—I was watching a student use AI to cheat on his math homework during one of my classes. He took a photo of geometrical line segments (what is the value of AC if AB is 10.6 and BC is 15.8?)...
The photo he took misinterpreted the number "5" as a number "7." He input the wrong answer into his test and wasn't able to figure out why, for several minutes, he had the wrong answer. This was a high school student.
Now take this and amplify it on the level of language. Without even considering dialectal differences between users, how are we going to be confident that a smart device will be able to recognize the difference between the word "sea" and "mother" in a different language, before it's translated into English?
This was like when some tech guy attempted to impress us with live translation in front of an entire professional development group, only for him to be embarrassed when the translation program turned "Hello, my name is _________" into "I'm going to kill you" (I'm not kidding, this actually happened with a bilingual English/Spanish speaker at my job at professional development).
People need to be careful before completely throwing themselves into trusting "translation"/interpretation tech. There is a reason why humans need to check the work produced by the tech.
Fascinating reading the comments in here from Europeans. Here I am in the US finding out recently that my cell phone carrier tracks app usage, web page history, and pretty much every little thing I do on my phone as they claim it will better my experience. Yet you all can’t even get a phone feature over privacy concerns.
It's the same for other manufacturers and vendors that offer the same feature in the EU but obviously Apple have decided to not make their variant compliant when they arguably could. Seems a shame to screw their EU market consumers though 😔
People are happy to trade their privacy for features of this world.
Writing this from russia where citizens traded their freedom for food delivery in 15 minutes.
if there was an option for that, the big tech would basically force all users to opt in if they want to use their services (as an example, FB skirts the GDPR law, and use your data for AI training by default with rather convulted way to opt out)
sorry, but the big tech become way to arrogant (FB, Google) and/or greedy (Apple) to be left running without rules that gives some power back to users and small businesses.
Last edited:
But then, we don't know who they are. They could literally be EU employees. In Ireland we have NGOs, which at first sounds fine, but when you scratch the surface and all kinds of shady business and strangeness is revealed. A lot of levers at play.
How am i gonna buy roses now? 
EU ppl need translation to & from arabic or indian…
EU ppl need translation to & from arabic or indian…
I wonder what actions Apple may have engaged in to help create the contentious situation?
Apparently, it’s not a matter of approvals. The App Store was created with the laws that were in place prior to the DMA and the EU introduced a new set of rules that overturned all that. So, just because something is ok today, doesn’t mean that the EU won’t figure out how to fine them in the future for something that is OK today.