Apple Watch to get a translation widget

The big topic of Apple’s annual conference (this year WWDC 2024) was clearly AI – more precisely the variant that the technology giant “Apple Intelligence.”

In the nearly two-hour keynote on June 10, 2024, numerous new developments for various Apple products were discussed, with many of the new or improved features falling somewhere under the term AI.

In fact, Apple's tablets, smartphones and watches are practically at the forefront of testing consumer-facing voice AI.

As Slator explains in its recent Pro Guide on Language AI for Consumers, consumers are already using language AI – whether they know it or not – when translating websites, subtitling short videos, and generating text.

The Apple brand has an excellent reputation for its mobile products, including phones and tablets, and its watchOS is also a flagship product for the company and another way to impress current and potential customers.

Now Apple has introduced another way for users to use voice AI through their Apple Watches.

“Apple Watch lets you perform quick, meaningful interactions right on your wrist, making it easy to stay connected to the world around you and the people you care about,” said David Clark, senior director of watchOS engineering, during the conference keynote.

Last year, Apple introduced Smart Stack to provide users with a constant stream of “useful information.” Now, Clark said, the app is “even smarter” because Smart Stack can automatically add widgets to the watch “exactly when you need them.”

For example, the Translate widget can be activated “when you're in a new place.” (Clark did not specify how exactly this is determined, whether through GPS coordinates, analysis of background noise or speech, or other methods.)

Users can tap to open the “new Translator app” on an Apple Watch and use machine learning models for speech recognition and translation.

“You can now simply dictate to see and hear it right on your wrist!” Clark said as the watch in the video began to “speak” text translated from English into Korean.

Slator Pro Guide: Voice AI for Consumers

This 16-page guide explores how consumers are using AI to generate, translate, edit, and synchronize speech and text in multiple languages.

It may take some time for Apple to measure the success of its new Translator widget for watchOS, but some observers have already expressed their excitement about the development.

“This is by far the easiest way to translate while traveling!” someone posted on X.

Journalist and self-proclaimed “all-around nerd” Parker Ortolani agreed: “The 'Translate' feature on Apple Watch just destroyed all your AI device translation demos.”

One of the AI ​​devices that could come under pressure from Apple's announcement is Japanese startup Pocketalk, which announced in March 2024 that it was preparing for a $500 million IPO.