Today’s a big day for Google Translate, as the Android and iOS apps are gaining some big new features.
First up, Google Translate on Android is gaining Tap to Translate. This new feature will let you translate text in any app without having to jump between it and the Google Translate app. Just copy the text and you’ll get a Google Translate button that’ll show you a popup with the translated text.
Once you’ve got your translated text, there are a couple of other things you can do in the Google Translate popup. You can hear how the original text is spoken, or you can hit “New Translation” to type out a phrase to be translated into the original text, enabling you to reply in another language.
Tap to Translate should make translating text from apps much faster than it was before when you had to copy text from one app and paste it into Google Translate. And it’s good that Google thought ahead and enabled you to type new text to be translated in that same popup.
Tap to Translate works with all 103 languages supported by Google Translate and is compatible with Android devices on Jelly Bean 4.2 and higher.
In other Google Translate news, the iOS version of the app now supports Offline Mode for performing translations when you’re without an internet connection. Additionally, Google has slimmed down the size of the translation files to around 25MB apiece and added support for Filipino, bringing the number of languages supported in Offline Mode to 52.
Finally, Chinese now works in Word Lens, which lets you point your phone’s camera at some text and have the translation appear on your screen.