There’s bad news for AirPods Live Translation in EU countries

We first spotted that AirPods Live translation was coming a month before the announcement. Initial language support is listed as English, French, German, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish – with four more languages coming later this year.

But while European languages are supported, you won’t necessarily be able to take advantage of that if you are within one of the countries in which they’re spoken …

We’d already seen some mixed news. On the plus side, the feature isn’t exclusive to the new AirPods Pro 3. It also works with Pro 2 and AirPods 4 models. However, because the translation actually runs on the linked iPhone, you will need an iPhone 15 Pro or newer running iOS 26.

Additionally, MacRumors has spotted a pretty big gotcha in an Apple support document.

Live Translation with AirPods is not available if you are in the EU and your Apple Account Country or Region is also in the EU

This creates a pretty bizarre situation. For example:

• American visiting Spain? All good.
• German visiting France? No go.
• German visiting the UK? Sure.
• Spaniard visiting Brazil? Yep.
• Spaniard visiting Germany? Nope.

The issue appears to be that the feature falls within Apple Intelligence, and those features are currently blocked within the EU over regulatory compliance concerns. The company has never been particularly clear about the exact nature of those concerns, and some believe it is really intended as a warning shot to the EU about what Apple sees as excessive regulation.

As to when it will be resolved, we’ll just have to wait and see. But for now, the translation feature is significantly less useful than it first appeared.

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