AirPods Live Translation launches with Pro 3, EU access restricted

Apple unveiled a new Live Translation feature for its AirPods at its Sept. 9 product event, promising near real‑time speech translation for conversations. The capability debuts with the AirPods Pro 3 and will also be made available to AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation once users install the required firmware and pair the earbuds with an Apple Intelligence enabled iPhone running iOS 26. Apple expects to release iOS 26 and the matching firmware on Sept. 15, with AirPods Pro 3 available to preorder now and launching on Sept. 19.

Live Translation uses on‑device and cloud tools in Apple Intelligence to transcribe and translate speech, allowing a wearer to speak naturally while the paired iPhone displays translated text for a non‑AirPods user. When both participants wear compatible AirPods and run iOS 26 on a supported iPhone, the system can route translated audio to each user and use Active Noise Cancellation to lower the other speaker’s volume so translated audio remains audible. At launch the feature will handle English U.K. and U.S., French, German, Portuguese Brazil, and Spanish; Apple plans to add Italian, Japanese, Korean, and simplified Chinese later...