Chirp vs Interpreter

Chirp is a translator you talk through, not a keyboard you type into. Press start once and put the phone down. It listens, works out which of you is speaking, translates what it heard, and says it out loud in the other person's language. Then it does the same in the other direction. Nobody passes a phone back and forth, and nobody holds a button. IT WORKS WITH NO SIGNAL AT ALL Speech recognition, translation and the spoken voice all run on the phone. Chirp contacts no service of ours at any point, has no account to make, and asks for nothing but the microphone. What is said in front of it stays on it. TWENTY LANGUAGES Downloaded before you travel: Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Dutch, English, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese. Pick the pair for the trip and take them with you. RUN IT WITHOUT THE SCREEN Start and stop from the Action button, from Control Centre, from a button on the Lock Screen, or by asking Siri. The Lock Screen shows the last thing each of you said, so the phone can stay on the counter or in a pocket. READ IT BACK AFTERWARDS Every conversation is kept as text for thirty days and then deleted. Chirp never keeps a recording — the audio is never written to disk at all. WHAT IT COSTS Twenty conversations free, each as long as you like. A trip pass unlocks fourteen days; one payment unlocks it forever. No subscription, ever. Chirp runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS 26 or iPadOS 26. It needs a microphone, and one download per language before you leave.

No button to hold. Just talk. When the other person speaks, you see the translation in your language; when you answer, they hear it in theirs. The app works out who is speaking on its own. Ten minutes free. After that, one purchase removes the limit. No monthly or weekly charges. ■ Where it helps ・Travelling — asking directions, ordering, checking a price ・Serving customers who don't share your language, at a shop, hotel or clinic front desk ・Counters and offices, explaining symptoms or paperwork ・Sitting down with a colleague, a neighbour or family who speaks another language ■ How it differs from other interpreter apps ・No push-to-talk. Start speaking and it starts listening; the translation keeps flowing as long as the conversation does ・No handing over your phone. Split view flips the top half 180° for the other person, so you stay face to face ・No account. No sign-up, no login. Open it and use it ・Nothing leaves the device. Speech recognition and translation both run on your iPhone. Your conversations are never sent to a server ・No time limit after you buy. A long meeting won't get cut off mid-sentence ・Works offline. After the one-time language download, it works on a plane or underground ■ Pricing ・Ten minutes free, in total (it is not a daily allowance that resets) ・After that, Pro removes the limit — a single purchase, no monthly or weekly charge ・Family Sharing supported ■ Languages English and Japanese, plus Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Korean, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Vietnamese, Thai, Arabic, Dutch and Turkish, in any pair. Only the languages your device's speech recognition and translation support are shown. ■ What it does ・Live captions. The translation appears while you are still speaking and firms up when the phrase ends ・Spoken translations, switchable for the other person and for you independently ・Split view, with the top half rotated 180° for the person across from you ・Speaker override. If the automatic detection gets it wrong, pin it to "Me" or "Them" ・Saved conversation history, shareable as text ・Large text mode, readable across a counter ・Microphone sensitivity adjustment ・The screen stays awake while you're interpreting ■ Being straight with you ・It struggles with jargon and long sentences. Short phrases translate far better ・Because everything runs on the device, the translation is not as strong as a large cloud model. In exchange it is cheap, fast, and private ・The microphone mutes while a translation is spoken aloud, so it goes more smoothly if the other person waits for it to finish ・Requires iOS 26 or later, iPhone 11 or later. An Apple Intelligence device is not required ■ Privacy The app collects no data. Neither your conversations nor your usage is sent anywhere. ■ Support Send questions and bug reports from the support page.