Google Translate Now Available as Default Translation App on iPhone and iPad

[Bustycat]

The interface of Apple Translate is also way worse. There is no option of "Detected Language" which can save much time on selecting the source language, and the texts on Apple Translate (iOS) are unnecessarily too large. Apple should have hired a UX designer that often uses machine translation.

 

[joergz]

DeepL can also be set as the default translation app, so it's not just Google Translate. I'm sure more will follow.

Yeah, support the small companies instead of Google.

 

[Paddle1]

This is a good addition. Apple's Translate app is missing so many languages.

 

[Bustycat]

A comparison table for the translated introduction (British English to traditional Chinese) of my current avatar, provided (also translated) by GPT-4.1.

Aspect	Apple	Google	GPT-4.1
Naturalness	Awful	Decent	Smooth and natural, with a literary touch
***tic/Allure	Weak, robotic	Moderate, rather tame	Intense, provocative, and explicit
Detail Fidelity	Disjointed, many errors	Some omissions, but mostly complete	Almost nothing missing, with intricate detailing
Descriptive Power	Rigid and awkward	Fluent but bland	Exquisitely crafted, highly visual and sensual
Machine-Translation Feel	Obvious	Slightly noticeable	Barely noticeable, nearly feels original
Suitable Scenarios	Not recommended	Fine for pure information	Top choice for advanced ***tica and Taiwan-localized content

 

[yabeweb]

Having a trip to Italy coming up. I was comparing Apple vs Google translate. So both allow you to download certain languages for offline translating (I wasn't planning to get an Italian cellular plan), but Google seems to require being connected if you want to translate from voice (i.e. not type out what you want to say). Otherwise they seem very comparable assuming the language you need is among Apple's smaller set.
Edit: By the way, I saw that with Verizon I can easily add daily or monthly roaming for $100/mo or $12/day which may be worth it.

For 100 a month in Italy I would want my carrier to give me a coffee free every day ( and still be mad for being charged so much ).. heck I spend 7.99 to get unlimited text and calls, 200 gb in 5g and 5 gb roaming in all Europe and USA.

 

[JapanApple]

Yes, Google translate is much better. I use it.

 

[ForkHandles]

Having a trip to Italy coming up. I was comparing Apple vs Google translate. So both allow you to download certain languages for offline translating (I wasn't planning to get an Italian cellular plan), but Google seems to require being connected if you want to translate from voice (i.e. not type out what you want to say). Otherwise they seem very comparable assuming the language you need is among Apple's smaller set.
Edit: By the way, I saw that with Verizon I can easily add daily or monthly roaming for $100/mo or $12/day which may be worth it.

How much??????

Use the Airalo app, you can buy an eSIM through their app and install it in seconds. Cost about $10. Works in loads of countries

 

[Frantisekj]

Thanks but no thanks will never use google products, they can't be trusted with my information, for anyone that use google on their apple products, don't complain you made that choice.

Is there any other app that would work? DeepL, Yandex?

 

[Jarman74]

Having a trip to Italy coming up. I was comparing Apple vs Google translate. So both allow you to download certain languages for offline translating (I wasn't planning to get an Italian cellular plan), but Google seems to require being connected if you want to translate from voice (i.e. not type out what you want to say). Otherwise they seem very comparable assuming the language you need is among Apple's smaller set.
Edit: By the way, I saw that with Verizon I can easily add daily or monthly roaming for $100/mo or $12/day which may be worth it.

Italian here. Depending on where you're going, you might be fine without either, as both are below par. For instance, English is widely understood in most places tourists visit, and you may only struggle when casually asking the average local for information.
I've never given Apple a chance for translations, but Google Translate is pretty much synonymous with laughable sentences here. Despite being around for almost 20 years, it still noticeably struggles with Italian.
If I were in your shoes, I'd give ChatGPT a try—it's the only service that can provide context-relevant translations. Enjoy your stay!

 

[L92]

Apple has really dropped the ball on language support, and it’s truly baffling. It’s not just the translation apps — it’s everything. For example, swipe-to-type and predictive text aren’t available in my language. But autocorrect and speech-to-text are. Like… what? You clearly have the language data — you’re just not implementing it properly. Translation and Siri are unavailable too. Also if you want to change the spoken directions language in Maps, you have to change the whole a.. system language of your phone. Horrid software. But we have icon tinting, yay!

 

[amaze1499]

iPhone and iPad users can now set Google Translate as their default translation app on iOS, replacing Apple's built-in Translate app as the go-to option.

To change your default app, you'll need to install the latest version of the Google Translate app, which was released today. From there, you can open up the Settings app, select the Apps section, tap on Default Apps, tap Translation, and choose Google Translate instead of Apple Translate.

The default translation app can be changed as long as you're running iOS 18.4 or iPadOS 18.4 or later.

iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 added the ability for users to set a different translation app as their default, and Google seems to be the first company to add support for the function. Users worldwide can select Google Translate as an alternative, and there are also options for changing the default Email, Messaging, Calling, Browser, and Password apps. In the EU, users can also select a different default navigation app, such as Google Maps.

Article Link: Google Translate Now Available as Default Translation App on iPhone and iPad

This doesn’t work at all. I got DeepL installed. Google Translate doesn’t show up.

Edit: Had to run the App updates twice. Now Google Translation app shows up as well.

 

[baryon]

Finally! Apple translate can only do a small handful of languages, while Google can do pretty much every language in existence. Which is nice when you need translation.

 

[baryon]

Apple has really dropped the ball on language support, and it’s truly baffling. It’s not just the translation apps — it’s everything. For example, swipe-to-type and predictive text aren’t available in my language. But autocorrect and speech-to-text are. Like… what? You clearly have the language data — you’re just not implementing it properly. Translation and Siri are unavailable too. Also if you want to change the spoken directions language in Maps, you have to change the whole a.. system language of your phone. Horrid software. But we have icon tinting, yay!

Yep. I thought they would slowly roll out new languages but they just completely gave up on it. I'm forced to use SwiftKey because Apple simply doesn't make Hungarian swipe to type or Hungarian multi language support, while every other keyboard does. Siri doesn't exist in Hungarian and Apple Translate doesn't do Hungarian. They have official presence in the country yet offer no support.

 

[tasa]

iPhone and iPad users can now set Google Translate as their default translation app on iOS, replacing Apple's built-in Translate app as the go-to option.

To change your default app, you'll need to install the latest version of the Google Translate app, which was released today. From there, you can open up the Settings app, select the Apps section, tap on Default Apps, tap Translation, and choose Google Translate instead of Apple Translate.

The default translation app can be changed as long as you're running iOS 18.4 or iPadOS 18.4 or later.

iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 added the ability for users to set a different translation app as their default, and Google seems to be the first company to add support for the function. Users worldwide can select Google Translate as an alternative, and there are also options for changing the default Email, Messaging, Calling, Browser, and Password apps. In the EU, users can also select a different default navigation app, such as Google Maps.

Article Link: Google Translate Now Available as Default Translation App on iPhone and iPad

I NEED GOOGLE MAPS AS DEFAULT. WAAAY BETTER THAN APPLE MAPS

 

[MLVC]

A comparison table for the translated introduction (British English to traditional Chinese) of my current avatar, provided (also translated) by GPT-4.1.

Aspect	Apple	Google	GPT-4.1
Naturalness	Awful	Decent	Smooth and natural, with a literary touch
***tic/Allure	Weak, robotic	Moderate, rather tame	Intense, provocative, and explicit
Detail Fidelity	Disjointed, many errors	Some omissions, but mostly complete	Almost nothing missing, with intricate detailing
Descriptive Power	Rigid and awkward	Fluent but bland	Exquisitely crafted, highly visual and sensual
Machine-Translation Feel	Obvious	Slightly noticeable	Barely noticeable, nearly feels original
Suitable Scenarios	Not recommended	Fine for pure information	Top choice for advanced ***tica and Taiwan-localized content

I'm sorry but as a professional translator ChatGPT is far from natural without extensive prompting. And even with extensive prompting it's very hard to get the "AI" out of the translated text. Claude in that aspect is much better. Google Translate, Apple Translate, it's all bad, well maybe for everyday use when on holiday but that's about it. DeepL is the better choice from those but not on par with Claude + detailed prompting.

 

[maerz001]

Is there somehow a setting for font size?
When i use it, the translation window font is like triple the size of my browser font. So i have to scroll a lot

 

[Dr McKay]

About time, Apple translate isn’t very useful to me when they don’t even have Swedish.

 

[W2u7Yw4HaD]

This is an improvement. google translate much better than apple translate

But much worse than DeepL for the languages which that supports.... Difference is night and day frankly.. Which also supports this replacement to Apple's translation software.

 

[svish]

Great to see this happening. With more languages supported by Google, it will be very useful. However not so sure about how privacy will be respected when using the Google app.

 

[adrianlondon]

But much worse than DeepL for the languages which that supports.... Difference is night and day frankly.. Which also supports this replacement to Apple's translation software.

Agree - I use DeepL to translate to/from German.

However, when translating into Mandarin, Google provides the pinyin to save me looking up every character I don't recognise. Also, on the rare occasion I want to hear it spoken, Google Translate's voice is much smoother/natural sounding.

 

[nowtvman]

Google doesn't "spy" in the way conspiracies claim. It collects data for ads based on your activity, which you can control in privacy settings. Opt out, use incognito, or switch to privacy-focused alternatives. #GooglePrivacy #TechTruth

 

[kave]

When doing this I can only translate to Italian language, not English or Swedish as before

 

[Dr McKay]

Google doesn't "spy" in the way conspiracies claim. It collects data for ads based on your activity, which you can control in privacy settings. Opt out, use incognito, or switch to privacy-focused alternatives. #GooglePrivacy #TechTruth

Is it any different to Apples ad platform? I was under the impression both systems operated the same way, e.g

Ad company approaches Google/Apple and says "I have an ad for a product I want aimed at Males aged 18-30 who are interested in X/Y/X" Google/Apple then say "Ok we will serve these ads to our users who match this criteria".

 

[Bustycat]

I'm sorry but as a professional translator ChatGPT is far from natural without extensive prompting. And even with extensive prompting it's very hard to get the "AI" out of the translated text. Claude in that aspect is much better. Google Translate, Apple Translate, it's all bad, well maybe for everyday use when on holiday but that's about it. DeepL is the better choice from those but not on par with Claude + detailed prompting.

My personal little search on MacRumors shows that you might be a big fan of Claude.

Come on Apple, I want Claude, not Gemini.

Let's hope we get Claude as alternative for ChatGPT in Apple Intelligence, I much prefer Claude.

I love Claude, beats ChatGPT, for what I need it, by miles.

Really hoping Apple expands beyond just ChatGPT and includes AI options like Claude, Gemini, and Mistral in their lineup.

I've also seen cases in which DeepSeek pretended to be Claude, so I guess they didn't limit themselves to models from OpenAI. Anyway, anybody surprised by that? Chinese do what Chinese do.

 

[johannnn]

Can anyone please explain - what does this setting do? Default translation app?
I get it for e.g. maps, then if you click an adress in an sms, it decides which app to open.
But what about translation? If I set this to google translate, then how can I use that? Other than just launching google translate?