I never saw one of their names on a ballot paper. Ever.
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AirPods Live Translation Blocked for EU Users With EU Apple Accounts
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I have no urgent need for that feature. Never had a problem communicating with other European people while traveling across Europe. Nearly all people speak at least English in addition to their mother tongue and most European people also speak the language of their surrounding neighbors. As a German I speak and understand English, French, Dutch, Danish, even a little Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Polish, but most of the times English is enough to communicate around the world.
[edit] Forgot: Also a little Greek - Difficult alphabet though...
[edit] Forgot: Also a little Greek - Difficult alphabet though...
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politely pointing out that you're taking MR speculation about EU regulations as fact as the premise for your question.
We don't actually know the actual cause behind Apple's decision, because Apple has thus far been unwilling to explain it.
And to be fair, this is where translations could be useful. No one needs to translate between Spanish and English; or between French and Italian.
It’s a useless feature anyways. Where is this supposed to be used? Somewhere in the Dschungel where no one speak English at least 😂 overhyped
Google is your friend.
Try grasping for “DMA interoperability”iPhone mirroring or whatever you need also works with VPN… question is who needs those gimmicks
Engadget says this feature will also be available on the previous gen AirPods?
A closer look at the AirPods Pro 3: ANC, Live Translation and heart-rate tracking
We spent extra time with the AirPods Pro 3 to get more info about the biggest updates.
are you telling me that its a feature of iOS and not the headphones, and should effectively work on all headphones with microhpone out there, including all previous Apple-made ones, and its EU thats bad here?
withholding gains them nothing though, only frustration with the users. Now nobody gets it, else, everyone with an iPhone and headphones gets it. In the first case, less reason to buy AirPods, in the last case more reason to buy iPhones...
I would hope Apple has learned its lesson on overpromising. If so, they are back to their underpromise and over deliver ways.
Are you talking about Apple? And gross or net profit? Last quarter their gross profit margin was about 47%, but net profit is a more relevant metric and that was only 24% (not the absurd profits people seem to assume)
Apple Profit Margin 2010-2025 | AAPL
Current and historical gross margin, operating margin and net profit margin for Apple (AAPL) over the last 10 years. Profit margin can be defined as the percentage of revenue that a company retains as income after the deduction of expenses. Apple net profit margin as of June 30, 2025 is...
www.macrotrends.net
That’s probably by choice because there are European parliamentary elections every five years.
There are also country parliamentary elections every four years (more or less).
Between the country parliaments and the EU parliament, you have all the names involved in choosing the member of the EU Commission (Commission because they make recommendations to the country parliaments, they do not enact laws.
I don't work at Apple and am not an engineer. So I don't know if the chip in the headphones is doing pre-processing or anything. But there are lots of things that might go into working this properly. Even if it doesn't require pre-processing, off the top of my head might require certain quality of microphone or a certain quality/speed of connection between the headphone and phone. Maybe if they opened this API up to other headphones it works terribly on almost all other phones, and if is forced to allow all to use the feature it makes a bad impression and isn't a good experience for Apple's customers.
My point is this is absolutely a product decision. There is literally no reason the government should be coming in and dictating "your invention belongs to anyone who wants it." That leads to companies not investing in new features because there is no ROI in developing them. Why should Apple be forced to subsidize features for Bose, B&O and Samsung? Apple spends the money developing it, and then those companies can come in and undercut them on price because they didn't have to spend money developing the feature.
There is a reason the EU has a massive innovation problem, and it's personified by bone-head regulations like this. Apple knows better than bureaucrats in Brussels what is best for their users and products. The government shouldn't be coming in, interfering in the free market, and picking winners and losers.
Per my point above, if it's a bad experience on other headphones, then releasing it anyway will make Apple look bad.
^Exactly that! That is the way it works on Android - probably even with AirPods™!
[edit] ...and that's also why Android has no problems in Europe:
They "give the feature away" to other competitors "for free"!
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I doubt anyone's going to be losing any sleep about this. I'd rather EU citizens be protected from any possible data and privacy issues (wish we still had that protection in the UK rather than our government asking Apple for backdoors into our data). Apple's not going to sell any fewer headphones as a result and I suspect the feature is hardly going to be used anyway. The demonstration in the advert was creepy as hell. When you're trying to speak to someone, especially in a foreign language, the last thing you should have is headphones in your ears. If you must use a translation app then speaking into a phone so that the experience is shared makes much more sense. Using headphones gives the impression that you're not even going to *try* to communicate by yourself.
This is the correct behavior that Apple should be engaging in.
If different markets have different regulations -- adapt to it and quit complaining about regulation, suing, delaying, whining in public.
It's all ridiculous.
A 3T company needs to better handle different markets and jurisdictions.
They seem to do it just fine with China.
Have you seen our government? What makes you think they have the competency to achieve this?
The whole experience seemed so confusing for the people in the *staged* ad. I can’t imagine how chaotic it would be in real life. Does anyone have any experience with the Android version?
for the people in the back:
we don't know that EU regulations are the actual reason, because Apple hasn't said so. This is purely MR speculation that you are taking as fact
Honest question, if Apple did talk to the EU and was told "if you release this you have to give it to everyone" and Apple does not want to give it to everyone, whether that's because they don't think it will work reliably on most headphones or because they just don't want to give away what they see as a differentiator, should Apple just not release the feature anywhere?
Like honestly what is Apple supposed to do?
Thread moved to political area.
All sailors on deck!
Lock & load everyone!
All sailors on deck!
Lock & load everyone!
Really? I always get a pop up that it can't be used with that account basically. If I am signed into my German account