Parece que Apple planea introducir funciones de traducción en vivo en los AirPods con iOS 19, que se espera que se lancen este otoño. Aunque esta tecnología ya está disponible en otros dispositivos—Google lanzó la traducción en vivo en los Pixel Buds en 2017 y la expandió a más teléfonos Android al año siguiente—Apple ha tomado su tiempo. Recientemente, la compañía se ha centrado en mejorar las funciones de salud auditiva y en explorar la integración de cámaras en sus auriculares premium. Ahora, parece que Apple está trabajando para que la traducción en tiempo real de idiomas sea una experiencia sencilla para los usuarios de AirPods, acercando una herramienta de comunicación futurista a la realidad.

Real-time translation in AirPods: what to expect

The news comes via the well-connected Mark Gurman at Bloomberg (paywall), who says that it'll deliver a "Star Trek-like experience to AirPods users".

According to the report, the feature will make use of your AirPods as well as your iPhone. Your phone will translate the other person's speech and play that translation in your AirPods; it ll then take your speech, translate it and play that to the other person via your iPhone's speaker.

The feature will be tied to iOS 19, which should be widely compatible with iPhones going back several years – though if the feature is billed as being part of Apple Intelligence, it may be limited to only newer devices.

And if it's made available to every model of AirPods, I'll be amazed: I suspect it'll be reserved for Apple's more premium earbuds with active noise cancellation, to make sure you can be focused on people's voices.

But perhaps I'll be wrong and it'll be a nice upgrade for all the best AirPods – after all, the iPhone seems to be doing the heavy lifting.

With AirPods Pro 3 expected later this year, it's possible Apple will decide to make the feature exclusive to its newest buds, though I think that's unlikely.