When launching from Google Translate, you only have access to the “Translate” filter and cannot switch to any other Lens capabilities. On Android, this launches the system-level capability, while the iOS app now has an instance of Lens built-in. Tapping the camera in both Translate mobile apps just opens a Lens UI. Given the overlap between the camera tools, Google is now replacing the native Translate capability with Google Len’s filter. The Android app’s broader Material You redesign modernized the UI last year. The Google Translate mobile apps have long offered a camera tool that was last revamped in 2019 with auto-detect and support for more languages. This can also work offline if you download the language pack ahead of time. That “Text” capability goes hand-in-hand with the “Translate” filter that can overlay your translation over the foreign text in the scene to better preserve context. Ahead of that, Google Translate has replaced its built-in translation camera with Google Lens.īesides visual search that has various shopping, object, and landmark identification use cases, Google Lens is good at lifting text for real-world copy and paste.

In the meantime, you can check for any updates to the app via Play Store.Back in September, Google previewed a new AR Translate feature for Lens that takes advantage of the technology behind the Pixel’s Magic Eraser. Since we were able to spot it on the latest Android Q beta, we suspect that might be a requisite for the feature (although we cannot say that for sure).

The new interface as well as the automatic language detection should be available to Google Translate with version 5.29 but, it seems to be a server-side switch so predicting exactly will be difficult. While the functionality of the Google Translate app is pretty similar to the earlier versions in terms of the features, the new interface with indicative text makes it easier to use. Additionally, the Import mode lets you select and scan existing images from the gallery to translate them. The Scan mode is pretty similar to the earlier versions, but there's a minor addition in the form of a new Clear button which lets you unselect the highlighted set of words. The text translated with the Instant mode is displayed on top of the original text with its formatting style ( somewhat) intact. The Instant mode, which is currently represented by an eye-shaped toggle icon, now also gets a more descriptive, 'Pause translation' button. As part of the new interface, there is a new bar at the bottom with the three available modes such as Instant, Scan, Import.

Google instant translate app