It appears WhatsApp is currently developing its own on-device translation feature, moving away from third-party technologies like Google. And they’ve recently decided to dismiss the adoption of Google Live Translate.
Now that they will develop their own translation tool, the feature may request users to download additional packages upon activation, as it will depend on on-device processing and won’t send users’ messages to a storage cloud. In our previous article, we mentioned that WhatsApp did initially plan to integrate “Google Live Translate” into its service but now that doesn’t look likely.
According to WABetaInfo, its on-device translator is still in beta. However, the company is developing the software to support certain languages, including English, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Hindi, and Russian. When enabled, this feature will automatically translate all texts within a chat, eliminating the need for users to copy and paste messages or switch between different apps when communicating in foreign languages.
WABetaInfo has provided us with screenshots on how their in-house translation program will look like. Basically, users can select a language they wish to translate, at which point they will be prompted to download a necessary language pack for the translation. Once translated, a label will pop up to help users distinguish between original and translated messages, which should allow for clearer and diverse communication, technically speaking.
(Source: WABetaInfo, Android Authority)
Haikal Nazri contributed to this article.
