Apple launches AirPods that can help live translate languages

AirPods that can provide live translation are among a range of new features and products unveiled by Apple.

The AirPods Pro 3, billed as “the ultimate audio experience”, were launched on Tuesday along with the tech giant’s new iPhone 17 line-up and updates to its digital watches.

Live translation on AirPods is available in English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish, while Italian, Japanese, Korean and a simplified version of Chinese should be on offer by the end of the year, according to Apple.

The aim is to make face-to-face translation easier through this a “hands-free capability (that) is powered by computational audio and Apple Intelligence to help people easily connect”. They have a starting price of £219.

It can work as a user speaks naturally with AirPods, according to the tech giant.

It adds: “To interact with someone who doesn’t have this hands-free capability, there’s an option to use iPhone as a horizontal display, showing the live transcription of what the user is saying in the other person’s preferred language.

“When the other person responds, their speech is translated into the user’s preferred language with AirPods.

“It’s even more useful for longer conversations when both users are wearing their own AirPods with Live Translation enabled from their iPhone.”

John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, claimed it takes “personal audio to the next level” as its features also include heart rate sensing during workouts, extended battery life, improved stability and fit plus active noise cancellation.

Apple also unveiled its iPhone 17 Pro, which costs from £1,099 and iPhone 17 Pro Max starts at £1,199.

Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, said: “iPhone 17 Pro is by far the most powerful iPhone we’ve ever made, with a stunning new design rebuilt from the inside out to maximise performance and deliver an enormous leap in battery life.”

In a move aimed at the selfie culture, the iPhone 17 models will feature a front camera with more megapixels for crisper photos.

The front camera will also have an option called “Center Stage” that will take advantage of a wider field of view and a new sensor that will enable users to take landscape photos without having to rotate the iPhone.

The new iPhones are the first to be released since President Donald Trump returned to the White House and unleashed a barrage of tariffs.

They are still expected to be made in Apple’s manufacturing hubs in China and India but both Mr Trump and US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick have insisted they should be made in the US.

Analysts have suggested this demand would take years to pull off and would result in a doubling, or even a tripling, of the iPhone’s current average price of about 1,000 dollars (£740).

Apple also vowed to find a million people with undiagnosed high blood pressure in just one year with its new watch.

The Apple Watch Series 11 has a notification that alerts users if they are suspected of having chronic high blood pressure.

Apple has said that it is filing for regulatory approval of the new technology.

The tool uses data from the watch’s heart sensor and an algorithm “looks for chronic high blood pressure by analysing how your blood vessels respond to beats of the heart”, Apple’s vice president of health Dr Sumbul Desai said.