This is probably due to concern about legal regulations around temporarily recording someone else's voice so it can be processed for translation. After all, there is no mechanism for the person you're talking to to provide "consent", and the EU does have particularly strong laws on this.
Alternatively it might have something to do with the translation being performed in iOS, and the capability not being exposed to competitor audio devices, and therefore Apple needs assurance the EU won't consider it anticompetitive?
Or both.
_boffin_ · 2h ago
How would this function in two-party consent states like California? My understanding is limited, but from what I've read, this might still violate consent laws unless explicitly disclosed—even in public spaces.
I recently explored building a real-time STT system for sales calls to support cold-calling efforts. However, the consensus from my research was that, even if audio is streamed live without storage, consent laws could still present significant hurdles.
crazygringo · 1h ago
I think it really depends on the legal definition of recording or what it's used for.
Common sense says that a recording that only exists for a few seconds, and is utilized only by the person a speaker is intending to speak to, and is never permanently stored, should be fine. And we can assume Apple has made sure this is legal in its home state of California.
But EU law might not have sufficient legal clarity on this if it was written in a particularly open-ended way.
rsynnott · 2h ago
Also potentially AI Act concerns. Quite a lot of things involving our good friends the magic robots have a delayed launch in the EU, because they need to be compliant, whereas the space is for practical purposes completely unregulated in most other places.
gabrielso · 3h ago
Yeah make it work in the US where you can fly 4 hours in any direction and still land somewhere that speaks the same language, and not in Europe where a 1:30h drive takes you through 3 different countries that don't know how to talk to each other...
aegypti · 2h ago
It also works in the entire Rest of World outside the EU
nozzlegear · 1h ago
13-14% of the US population speak Spanish at home.
JSR_FDED · 3h ago
My understanding is that this works on-device (via the iPhone), so I wonder what the regulatory issue is.
Perhaps the regulations treat is as if you’re “recording” the person you’re speaking with, without their consent?
pornel · 3h ago
Apple's response to EU's attempt to open up App Store has been full of pettiness, tantrums, and malicious compliance.
Apple is most likely withholding features in EU as a bargaining chip in antitrust negotiations, and to discredit EU's consumer protections. Pretending things in Europe are randomly unknowably illegal for no reason supports Apple's narrative and popular opinion in the US.
JustExAWS · 2h ago
The EU said that everything that Apple creates for its own devices has to have APIs for third parties. The translation feature only works for AirPods.
hn8726 · 1h ago
Ok so it's not "airpods live translation" really, but "ios live translation" and there's no technical reason to limit it to airpods?
JustExAWS · 1h ago
The audio input comes from the AirPods not the iPhone. It’s processed on the iPhone.
The audio is captured by the outward facing microphones used for active noise cancellations. That’s why it only works for AirPods Pro 2, 3 and AirPods 4 with ANC. That wouldn’t just work with any headphones.
Even the AirPods Pro 2 will need a firmware update. They won’t work with just any old headphones and seeing that even the AirPods Pro 2 need a firmware update tells me that it is something they are doing with their H2 chip in their headphones in concert with the iPhone.
StopDisinfo910 · 10m ago
I mean, technically, any competitors with noise cancelling headphones able to pick up a voice stream would be able to use the same processing on the iPhone to offer an equivalent feature.
That it only works with AirPods is just Apple discriminating in favour of their own product which is exactly what the EU was going after.
ageospatial · 52m ago
GDPR is solid. But main reason is that it's just hard to make it work with the AI act, various languages could also be the reason (product not adding enough value to customers?)
renewiltord · 46m ago
It makes sense that increased regulation will delay feature release. This is a trade off that Europeans seem fine with. Seems fine to me.
danudey · 27m ago
In Canada we have roughly equivalent regulation for many (most?) things and still get delayed feature releases half the time, so at least the EU is getting something out of it.
Daishiman · 3h ago
I mean studying a technology with this scale to assess its impact before allowing it freely is… not terrible?
solardev · 3h ago
What do you mean? Aren't EU regulations obsolete now and unable to keep up with economic realities, causing the EU to lose its competitive edge? My Airpods told me so!
lm28469 · 1h ago
The whole US economy is propped up by FAANG which are either data collectors, surveillance tools, ad delivery mechanism or competing to suck your attention out of your body, you can keep your competitive edge.
JustExAWS · 2h ago
Shouldn’t the lack of any major tech companies out of the EU and comparatively piss poor comp of tech workers tell you that?
solardev · 2h ago
I was being facetious, but no... I think the quality of life, in terms of livability, in the EU is much higher than in the US. I would much rather have strong social and consumer and legal protections and healthcare and safety nets than strong corporations that rule everything.
If you're rich, I'm sure the US is great. If you're not, it's not a great place to live.
nozzlegear · 1h ago
Americans consume more goods and services, live in larger homes, and have a higher material standard of living than Europeans, on the median. The US does spend much more on healthcare, but the outcomes are largely comparable to Europe’s (meaning universal healthcare has not actually given Europeans a clear advantage in lived results).
Average infant mortality rate in the USA: 5.6 per thousand
Average infant mortality rate in the EU: 3.25 per thousand
Life expectancy in the USA: 78.4 years
Life expectance in the EU: 81.7 years
danudey · 21m ago
Europeans also get mandated parental leave and vacation time, far better labour laws, better health-related regulatory conditions (e.g. food, drugs, agriculture, environment, gun control, etc.), and so on, and don't go bankrupt and lose everything because of a heart attack or pregnancy complications.
Having a big house and more money doesn't mean you have a better life; this seems to be the main point of the article you linked, but your comment seems to imply that you missed that point (though I could be misreading). Case in point, this quote from the blog:
> I could go on, but the pattern is pretty clear. The U.S. in general is less healthy and less safe than Europe.
pmdr · 2h ago
Just add another cookie banner before each session and you'll be fine, Apple.
Alternatively it might have something to do with the translation being performed in iOS, and the capability not being exposed to competitor audio devices, and therefore Apple needs assurance the EU won't consider it anticompetitive?
Or both.
I recently explored building a real-time STT system for sales calls to support cold-calling efforts. However, the consensus from my research was that, even if audio is streamed live without storage, consent laws could still present significant hurdles.
Common sense says that a recording that only exists for a few seconds, and is utilized only by the person a speaker is intending to speak to, and is never permanently stored, should be fine. And we can assume Apple has made sure this is legal in its home state of California.
But EU law might not have sufficient legal clarity on this if it was written in a particularly open-ended way.
Perhaps the regulations treat is as if you’re “recording” the person you’re speaking with, without their consent?
Apple is most likely withholding features in EU as a bargaining chip in antitrust negotiations, and to discredit EU's consumer protections. Pretending things in Europe are randomly unknowably illegal for no reason supports Apple's narrative and popular opinion in the US.
The audio is captured by the outward facing microphones used for active noise cancellations. That’s why it only works for AirPods Pro 2, 3 and AirPods 4 with ANC. That wouldn’t just work with any headphones.
Even the AirPods Pro 2 will need a firmware update. They won’t work with just any old headphones and seeing that even the AirPods Pro 2 need a firmware update tells me that it is something they are doing with their H2 chip in their headphones in concert with the iPhone.
That it only works with AirPods is just Apple discriminating in favour of their own product which is exactly what the EU was going after.
If you're rich, I'm sure the US is great. If you're not, it's not a great place to live.
Source: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/americans-are-generally-richer...
Average infant mortality rate in the USA: 5.6 per thousand Average infant mortality rate in the EU: 3.25 per thousand
Life expectancy in the USA: 78.4 years Life expectance in the EU: 81.7 years
Having a big house and more money doesn't mean you have a better life; this seems to be the main point of the article you linked, but your comment seems to imply that you missed that point (though I could be misreading). Case in point, this quote from the blog:
> I could go on, but the pattern is pretty clear. The U.S. in general is less healthy and less safe than Europe.