Hands On: Siri's Translation Features in iOS 11
In iOS 11, Siri has a new feature that lets you ask the personal assistant to translate English into one of several different languages. We already did a Siri overview video showing off Siri's new capabilities, but we thought we'd take a closer look at translate, which can come in handy when you're traveling.
Translate works as expected -- ask Siri how to say something in another language, and Siri does it. For example, you might say "Translate 'Where's the bathroom' to Spanish," or "How do I say 'I am a vegetarian' in Chinese?"
When translating, Siri speaks the translation aloud, so whomever you're speaking to can hear what you have to say directly in their language. There's also a button for quickly repeating the spoken translation.
Siri can translate English to Mandarin, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, but not the other way around. Apple says there are plans to expand the feature to include additional languages in the coming months.
As you might have noticed, Siri's new translating abilities are accompanied by a more natural, human sounding voice with better pronunciation and inflection. Siri's also much smarter in iOS 11, thanks to new on-device learning functionality and cross-device syncing. Siri can also make suggestions based on your browsing habits, and it knows more about music.
For details on Siri's new capabilities and all of the other features in iOS 11, make sure to check out our iOS 11 roundup.
Popular Stories
Apple will adopt the same rear chassis manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 that it is using for the upcoming standard iPhone 16, claims a new rumor coming out of China. According to the Weibo-based leaker "Fixed Focus Digital," the backplate manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 is "exactly the same" as the standard model in Apple's upcoming iPhone 16 lineup, which is expected to...
Key details about the overall specifications of the iPhone 17 lineup have been shared by the leaker known as "Ice Universe," clarifying several important aspects of next year's devices. Reports in recent months have converged in agreement that Apple will discontinue the "Plus" iPhone model in 2025 while introducing an all-new iPhone 17 "Slim" model as an even more high-end option sitting...
Apple typically releases its new iPhone series around mid-September, which means we are about two months out from the launch of the iPhone 16. Like the iPhone 15 series, this year's lineup is expected to stick with four models – iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max – although there are plenty of design differences and new features to take into account. To bring ...
Apple is scaling back its Hollywood spending after investing over $20 billion in original programming with limited success, Bloomberg reports. This shift comes after the streaming service, which launched in 2019, struggled to capture a significant share of the market, accounting for only 0.2% of TV viewership in the U.S., compared to Netflix's 8%. Despite heavy investment, critical acclaim,...
Last Friday, a major CrowdStrike outage impacted PCs running Microsoft Windows, causing worldwide issues affecting airlines, retailers, banks, hospitals, rail networks, and more. Computers were stuck in continuous recovery loops, rendering them unusable. The failure was caused by an update to the CrowdStrike Falcon antivirus software that auto-installed on Windows 10 PCs, but Mac and Linux...
