Android users may envy you. New in WhatsApp for iOS

WhatsApp for iOS is testing automatic message translation. It is designed to work separately for each conversation and cover 21 languages ​​supported by Apple’s system translation packages.

In the beta version of WhatsApp, there were references to the “translate messages” switch in the settings of a specific chat. After turning it on, all new messages arriving in a given conversation will be automatically translated from the selected source language to the target language (e.g. English or Polish). The new feature will work in both one-on-one and group conversations. There is one condition – participants must write in the same language.

Currently, on iPhone, translating in WhatsApp requires long-pressing the message, selecting “More…” and manually selecting languages. The new function will allow you to set automatic translation for the entire conversation, without having to activate the option each time.

The mechanism is based on Apple translation packages and runs locally on the device. This means that the translation has to be done entirely on a mobile phone. This will prevent it from compromising end-to-end encryption. Currently, Apple supports: Arabic, Dutch, English (UK/US), French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese (Mainland China and Taiwan), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish (Spain), Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese. The same language list will be available on WhatsApp.

The feature is not yet available to all testers and there is no announced rollout date for the stable version of the app.