The babel fish idea of Douglas Adams in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (above) in real life. All of which is to say that the real-time audio translation that Apple is rolling out comes with some challenges. The concept isn’t entirely new, Google’s Pixel Buds already have a version of this feature, only not with audio translation. It’s no accident that one of the first translation services to take off in the internet age was called Babel Fish (it’s since been absorbed into Microsoft’s translation function). The true test of real-time translation won’t be when it converts Greek into English in your ears.
