Sep 12, 2025 12:59:00

AirPods live translation will support Japanese by the end of 2025, but it won't be available in the EU

Apple announced the noise-canceling, completely wireless earphones '

AirPods Pro 3 ' on September 10, 2025. The AirPods Pro 3 has a feature called 'Live Translation' that translates conversations in real time, but there are restrictions in some regions.

AirPods Pro 3 delivers the ultimate audio experience - Apple (Japan)
https://www.apple.com/jp/newsroom/2025/09/airpods-pro-3-introduce-the-ultimate-audio-experience/

iOS and iPadOS 26 - Feature Availability - Apple
https://www.apple.com/ios/feature-availability/#apple-intelligence-live-translation-with-airpods

AirPods Live Translation Blocked for EU Users With EU Apple Accounts - MacRumors
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/09/11/airpods-live-translation-eu-restricted/

The AirPods Pro 3 are in-ear type, completely wireless earphones with advanced features such as 'more efficient noise cancellation than the previous generation model,' 'heart rate monitoring,' 'calorie consumption monitoring,' and 'live translation.' The details of the AirPods Pro 3 announcement are summarized in the article below.

'AirPods Pro 3' arrives, featuring outstanding audio quality and the world's best active noise canceling function - GIGAZINE

Live Translation is a real-time translation feature powered by Apple Intelligence, allowing people wearing compatible AirPods to have smooth conversations, even between people speaking different languages.

Even if the other person doesn't have AirPods, you can still communicate by translating what you say into the other person's language, transcribing it, and displaying it on the iPhone screen.

AirPods Pro 3 is scheduled to be released on September 19, 2025, but at launch, live translation will only be available in five languages: English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. Support for Japanese, Italian, Korean, and Simplified Chinese will be added by the end of 2025. Incidentally, Apple's

support page states that live translation will also be available on AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2 .

As mentioned above, Live Translation is scheduled to be available in Japan by the end of 2025, but the situation is different in the EU. According to Apple's region list for various features, 'AirPods Live Translation cannot be used if you are in the EU and your Apple account's region setting is set to the EU.' In other words, while Live Translation supports French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish, it is not available in the EU member states of France, Germany, Portugal, and Spain.

Apple has not explained why Live Translation is unavailable in the EU, but some speculation on the social news site Hacker News suggests that it may be related to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which prohibits monopolies on operating system features. Others speculate that Live Translation violates EU law because it temporarily records the other person's voice and there is no way to obtain consent for recording.