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Babel fish for AirPods!
Real-time translation is coming to Apple's earbuds.
Leander Kahney
March 14, 2025
The Babel fish from Douglas Adams’ sci-fi classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is coming to AirPods!
In Adams’ book, the Babel fish is a creature that translates brain waves, acting as a universal translator. Now, Apple reportedly plans to add real-time translation to AirPods in iOS 19, bringing to the mainstream a capability only previously dreamed of in sci-fi.
It sounds like a great practical use of artificial intelligence. And after this week’s hysterical hyperventilating about Apple’s struggles with AI, it’s a great use case.
Of course, this type of feature has been available on some Samsung earbuds for a while, but some drawbacks aren’t immediately obvious until you try to use the tech in real life.
Personally, I’m glad Apple is taking a slow, cautious approach to AI, even if the company’s marketing department might have made some rash promises about the rollout of Apple Intelligence features.
Also in today’s newsletter:
I picked up an iPad 10 last year during the Black Friday sales and was blown away by what a superb device it is: a good-looking, capable, modern tablet at a very reasonable price. The latest entry-level iPad continues to offer great value, and at an even lower debut price. Check out our hands-on review.
Here’s some good news. Digital privacy and security is more important than ever these days, especially for personal communications. I’m delighted to see Apple is working to plug a big privacy/security hole in iOS-to-Android communication.
Cult of Mac’s managing editor Lewis Wallace has been on Apple’s annual iPhone Upgrade Plan for years, and is a huge fan of it. For some reason, Apple doesn’t offer a similar plan for MacBooks. However, a company called Upgraded does, and its MacBook upgrade program gets good reviews. Take a look.
Gritty new Apple TV+ crime drama Dope Thief is getting mixed reviews, but now that it’s streaming, it’s worth checking out for star Brian Tyree Henry, who’s supposed to be outstanding. Plus, Ridley Scott directed the first episode.
For me, this comes as bad news, but the fourth season of the execrable Ted Lasso has been green-lit.
Learn why the Power Macintosh 7100 came to be code-named “BHA” — it’s a pretty amusing story.
— Leander Kahney, EIC.
A message from Upgraded
A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team
Tweets of the day
This was beyond amazing. James screamed into my face and I stood next to Lars as he played Enter Sandman. This is the best immersive video yet by Apple. F**k that was awesome. No queasiness or motion sickness at all.
— Ravi Krishnan (@krcnow)
2:48 AM • Mar 14, 2025
Apple Vision Pro’s cultural impact right there
— Dylan (@DylanMcD8)
11:01 PM • Mar 13, 2025
It's also not even clear there is a singular person to blame here. Apple Intelligence was co-led by Craig Federighi and John Giannandrea. Marketing goes up to Greg Joswiak and Tor Myhren. You can't just fire everyone. This isn't the Apprentice.
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman)
1:11 AM • Mar 14, 2025
Wallpaper of the day
One more thing ...
Some people are saying that we ought to put an IBM PC on every desk in America to improve productivity. It won't work. The special incantations you have to learn this time are “slash q-zs” and things like that. The manual for WordStar, the most popular word-processing program, is 400 pages thick. To write a novel, you have to read a novel -- one that reads like a mystery to most people. They're not going to learn slash q-z any more than they're going to learn Morse code. That is what Macintosh is all about.
Today’s poll
Are you clutching your pearls about Apple's AI rollout? |
Results from yesterday’s poll: Classical or classic rock?
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