You Don’t Have to Buy New AirPods to Get Live Translation
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One of the coolest new features Apple showed off during yesterday’s “Awe Dropping” event was the Live Translation feature for the new AirPods Pro 3. Even though we knew it was coming, it was fascinating to see how it works and good to know that reports of its delay were unfounded.
To recap, here’s how Apple describes the feature:
With Live Translation, powered by Apple Intelligence, you can listen to people speaking in different languages and hear translations through your AirPods Pro 3. To respond, just speak naturally, and your words will appear in the other person’s language on your iPhone screen. To make the experience even more magical, if you both have AirPods Pro 3, you can each speak in your own language and hear translations through your AirPods.
However, there’s another piece of good news here that Apple didn’t explicitly mention during the presentation: You likely won’t need to buy new AirPods to take advantage of the Live Translation feature.
That’s because Apple isn’t making this exclusive to the AirPods Pro 3. Contrary to some earlier speculation, the new AirPods Pro aren’t getting a new H3 chip. Instead, they use the same H2 chip as both their predecessors and last year’s AirPods 4. This means that any software features that run on the AirPods Pro 3 should work on these other H2-equipped models.
Unlike the new heart rate sensing, Live Translation is handled entirely in software, and most of it isn’t even done directly on the AirPods. So, it wasn’t surprising to find a note tucked away in the fine print stating that the feature is also coming to more AirPods models than just Apple’s latest.
Live Translation with AirPods works on AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation and AirPods Pro 2 and later…
Still, there does appear to be a catch, as Apple notes that it will only be available on the more expensive version of the AirPods 4 that include Active Noise Cancellation. Although Apple hasn’t clarified why that’s the case, since the hardware is seemingly identical, the ANC processing may be crucial to separate the speaker from the translation.
What Else Do I Need for Live Translation on my AirPods?
In addition to a set of AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, AirPod Pro 2, or AirPods Pro 3, you’ll also need to ensure they’re running the latest firmware.
They’ll also need to be paired with an Apple Intelligence-capable iPhone running iOS 26, as that’s where all the heavy lifting occurs. This means you’ll only be able to use Live Translation with an iPhone 15 Pro or any of the later iPhone 16 and iPhone 17 models (and, of course, the new numberless “iPhone Air”).
Apple released the iOS 26 Release Candidate to developers yesterday, which, if all goes well, should be the final version released to the public on Monday. However, don’t worry if you’re running the RC and can’t see Live Translation, as Apple doesn’t appear to have let the updated AirPods Pro firmware out yet. The RC version also appears to have removed the toggle for AirPods beta firmware updates, so presumably we’ll just have to wait for the final release of the new AirPods firmware.
Lastly, as useful as the Live Translation feature is, the availability of languages is somewhat limited — even more so than the already relatively small list of languages supported by Apple’s Translate app. At launch, Live Translation will only be available for US and UK English, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish. Apple plans to add Italian, Japanese, Korean, and simplified Chinese by the end of the year.
