The future star feature of the Apple AirPods series - real-time translation - was unveiled amid great anticipation, but faced an unexpected "disaster" upon its official release. This innovation, which was supposed to amaze users around the world, suddenly went "silent" across the entire European Union. This unexpected situation left many Apple fans in Europe disappointed.
It turns out that this real-time translation feature, powered by Apple's own AI system Apple Intelligence, was originally planned to be released with the iOS 26 system update, along with the new AirPods Pro 3, AirPods 4, and AirPods Pro 2. However, the Apple official website clearly stated that due to strict "interoperability" regulations in the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), this feature is temporarily unavailable for users in the EU or those using an Apple ID based in the EU.
Apple has also responded to this issue, emphasizing that this delay is unrelated to user data protection or other legal requirements, and is entirely due to the DMA Act. This is not the first time Apple has encountered such challenges in the EU market. Last year, due to these new regulations, Apple had to delay the launch of some AI features until March of this year before finally making them available to EU users. This time, the absence of the real-time translation feature once again highlights the complex challenges faced by tech giants when dealing with different regional regulations, and has raised new questions about Apple's future global strategy.
