Apple shipped Translate in September 2020 with iOS 14 and almost no fanfare, and for a while it looked like a checkbox app — the kind Apple builds to avoid ceding a category. Six years on it is something more specific: the only translator in wide use that treats keeping your text on the device as the point rather than a footnote.
- Translation can run entirely on-device, so text and audio need not leave the phone
- Free with iOS, iPadOS and macOS — no account, no subscription, no usage limit
- Downloadable language packs work with no connection at all
- System-wide: selected text, Safari pages, Camera, and a developer framework third-party apps can call
- Conversation mode splits the screen for two-person, face-to-face use
- Around 21 languages today — a fraction of Google Translate's 249
- Live Translation is gated to Apple Intelligence devices and recent AirPods, with a much shorter language list than the app
- No glossary, terminology control or document translation
- Apple publishes no quality benchmarks, and independent comparisons are scarce
- Apple-only: nothing for Android or Windows
- Travellers who want translation that works on a plane or with no roaming data
- Anyone translating material that must not be sent to a third-party server
- iPhone and Mac users who mostly need quick translation inside apps they already use
- Your language is outside the roughly 21 supported
- You need document translation, glossaries or professional-grade output
- You are on Android or Windows, or share a workflow with people who are
Pricing
Included with iOS, iPadOS and macOS. All languages, offline packs, conversation mode and Safari integration, with no subscription.
Requires an Apple Intelligence-capable device — iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16 or later, M-series iPad or Apple silicon Mac — and, for the AirPods experience, AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, AirPods Pro 2 or later, or AirPods Max 2.
The architecture is the argument
Google, DeepL and Microsoft all send your text to a server. That is not sinister; it is how you run a large model. But it means every message, contract clause or medical note you translate becomes a request in someone else's infrastructure, governed by someone else's retention policy.
Apple's approach inverts that. Download a language and the model sits on the phone. No network, no request, no policy to read. For a hospital worker translating a patient's question, a lawyer skimming a foreign clause, or a traveller on a plane with no signal, that is not a privacy abstraction — it is the difference between a usable tool and one that is either forbidden or offline.
The price is the model. On-device translation runs smaller and covers less, and the language list shows it.
Roughly 21 languages, with more in the betas
Apple has kept Translate deliberately narrow: the app covers around 21 languages, against 249 for Google Translate and well over 100 for DeepL. That is enough for a typical European or East Asian trip and useless for large parts of the world.
That is changing. Reporting on the iOS 27 betas describes nine additional languages and accents in the app — Danish, Swedish, Cantonese and Hebrew are among those named, along with additional Spanish variants — which would take the total to about 30 and represent the largest expansion Translate has received. Treat that as beta-stage information until Apple ships it; the language picker inside the app is the only authoritative list.
Live Translation is a different product
The feature Apple markets hardest is not the app. Live Translation, part of Apple Intelligence, translates conversations inside Messages, FaceTime and the Phone app, and speaks translations into AirPods during an in-person conversation. It launched supporting English (UK and US), French, German, Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish, with Mandarin, Italian, Japanese and Korean announced to follow, and it expanded to the EU in late 2025.
The requirements are strict and worth stating before anyone buys hardware for it: an Apple Intelligence-capable device — iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16 or later, an M-series iPad, an Apple silicon Mac — and, for the earbud experience, AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, AirPods Pro 2 or later, or AirPods Max 2. Apple Intelligence itself needs about 7GB of free storage, requires the device and Siri languages to match, and does not currently function on devices purchased in mainland China.
Google's competing feature works with any headphones on a supported Android phone and covers more than 70 languages. Apple's is more tightly integrated and far more constrained.
Where it fits in the system
The strongest thing about Apple Translate is that it is rarely an app you open. Select text anywhere in iOS or macOS and translation is in the menu. Safari translates a whole page from the address bar. The Camera translates a menu. A developer framework lets third-party apps call the same engine, so translation turns up in software that never implemented it. This is the classic platform advantage, and it is the reason most iPhone users never install a translation app at all.
What it deliberately does not do
There is no document translation. There is no glossary or terminology control. There is no browser extension for Chrome or Firefox, no Android app, no Windows client, and no team or enterprise tier. Apple has not built a professional translation product and shows no sign of wanting to.
That narrowness is worth respecting rather than complaining about. A translator bundled free with an operating system, running on-device, aimed at travellers and quick comprehension, is a coherent product. The failure mode is people evaluating it against DeepL for business documents and concluding Apple is behind — it is not competing there at all.
Getting the most out of it
Download language packs before you travel, not at the airport. Use the Camera for signs and menus rather than typing what you see. Learn the two-finger conversation layout before you need it in front of a stranger. And remember that translation is in the system share sheet and text-selection menu, so the fastest route is usually not opening the app at all.
One more thing worth knowing: Apple ships a Translation framework that third-party developers can call. That means translation can appear inside apps whose developers never built it — a note-taking app, a browser, a messaging client — using the same on-device models and the same language packs you already downloaded. It is the quiet advantage of a feature that lives in the operating system rather than in a single app, and it is the reason Apple's smaller language list bothers people less than it should.
Who should use it
Use Apple Translate when the material is sensitive, when you have no connection, or when you just need the gist of something inside an app you are already in. Add Google Translate for anything involving a language Apple does not cover, for camera-heavy travel use, or for live conversation with people who are not carrying AirPods. Reach for DeepL when the output is going to a client in a European language.
It is a good tool with a narrow remit, and — unusually for this category — it is honest about that remit by construction. A translator that only covers 21 languages cannot oversell itself.
