AirPods are finally stealing one of Google and Samsung's best features

Apple still appears to be tinkering with the AirPods. It makes sense as the earbuds still bring in billions for Apple each year, and the competition in the earbud market is ramping up.

That competition also means some companies have certain features that Apple hasn't implemented yet. In this case, there's a feature that the Samsung Galaxy Earbuds and the Google Pixel Buds have that Apple will reportedly add to the AirPods fairly soon.

Live Translation is a new feature coming to the AirPods later this year, according to a report from Bloomberg. The tentative plan for Apple is to release the Live Translation feature in a future AirPods update, likely with the release of iOS 19.

Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the feature.

The iPhone maker reportedly has another AirPods feature in the works, but it likely won’t appear in the earbuds anytime soon. This feature involves adding cameras to the AirPods in order to pick up details from the surrounding environment. This feature would depend heavily on AI, which Apple is having a little trouble with right now as the company recently delayed its major overhaul of Siri. It's also unclear if these cameras will be available only on the larger AirPods Max or if Apple will find a way to incorporate them into the AirPods earbuds.

How woud Live Translation work?

The report doesn't offer details on how Live Translation for the AirPods would work, but the feature might function similarly to how it works on the Galaxy Buds and Pixel Buds.

In both cases, the phone's translation app is doing the actual translating. Once activated, the app will translate the language being spoken and send that translation directly to the earbuds. It will also pick up what the person wearing the earbuds is saying and translate it to the language the other person is speaking. This makes translation smoother, as the person wearing the buds can simply let the other person hold the phone with the app running instead of passing it back and forth.

Apple might be able to streamline the process even further, but that won't be made clear until the feature's release. This feature might be shown off in June at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference.