iOS 26 brings a great capability to any iPhone that can run Apple Intelligence — real-time translations for your phone calls, so you can speak freely with someone and understand exactly what they’re saying. This translation tool works pretty seamlessly, too — if you take a few steps to prepare for your conversation ahead of time.
In case you haven’t had a chance to use it yet, the iOS 26 translation feature is a new arrival in the Phone app. When enabled, you and the person on the other end of the line can speak in your own languages to each other. The volume of each speaker will drop, replaced by an AI-powered voice that provides translations on both ends of the line. (You only hear the translation in your language, cutting down on the potential for cross-talk.)
Translation tools have been around in some form for a while now, but the advantage with the Apple Intelligence implementation is that they’re pretty close to real time. When I’ve used the feature, there’s not much of a delay between the person speaking on the other end of the line and the AI translator piping in with an English-language version of what they’re saying. Also helpfully, there’s an on-screen transcript so you can follow along with the call that way as well.
Phone call translations are just one part of the multilingual skills iOS 26 brings to the table. A similar translation feature is available for FaceTime calls, and iOS 26 Messages will offer translations of text messages, too. For the purposes of this article, though, we’re going to focus entirely on translating conversations in the Phone app.
To get started, make sure you have an Apple Intelligence-capable device with iOS 26 installed. That means an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max or any iPhone 16 model, including the iPhone 16e. The recently released iPhone 17 models also support Apple Intelligence and come with iOS 26 pre-installed, so you needn’t worry about upgrading to the new software.
On the live translation menu, you’ll be prompted to select the language you want translated, as well as your target language. (In this case, I’ve selected German, which I want translated to English.) If you haven’t already downloaded the language ahead of time, it will begin downloading now, and to me, that’s the biggest pain point in using Live Translations.
My download is 1.64GB, and that’s going to take a while, especially if you’re already on a call with someone who doesn’t speak the same language as you. For that reason, I suggest making sure to download the language before you make your call.
That may seem like a show-stopper, but it really isn’t. Chances are, you’re not calling phone numbers at random only to discover that the person on the other end of the line speaks a different language. Instead, you likely know that the business, colleague, friend or relative on the other end of the line will prefer to speak in their native language, which allows you to prepare ahead of time.
You can make sure that you already have a language preinstalled by launching your iPhone’s built-in Translate app and tapping the More menu in the right corner. (It’s the three horizontal dots.) On the pop-up menu, select languages and then on the next screen, tap the download arrow next to the language you want to install.
Successfully downloaded languages will appear in an Available Offline section of the Languages screen in Translate. And they’ll be useable for the Live Translation features across the Phone, FaceTime and Messages apps.
Source:
https://www.tomsguide.com/phones/iphones/how-to-use-live-translations-in-the-ios-26-phone-app