We know that Google’s going to turn the Pixel 6 into an AI-powered translating and transcribing powerhouse, based on leaks so far. And ahead of the anticipated October 19th event, a teardown has just dug up details that point to Live Transcribe picking up offline functionality for multiple language packs, which could help provide some of that functionality.
Details were divined by our fine friends at XDA Developers, who spotted a handful of strings in v4.6 of the Live Transcribe app that spell out some of the changes pretty clearly, describing the process of downloading a language pack for offline use (and the errors that should be presented in the UI if that fails). Anticipated functionality, based on the teardown, includes support for multiple offline language packs, though nothing like a language list or a timeline for the feature’s availability was nestled inside the code.
Based on the details provided, if and when the feature rolls out, it should mean you’ll be able to use Live Transcribe entirely offline and on-device once you’ve downloaded the correct language pack. In case you haven’t used it, Live Transcribe started life as an accessibility feature meant to transcribe the written word in near real-time, but it’s required an active internet connection to work until now.
Bringing this change fully on-device like this is both right in line with Google’s expressed plans with Android 12’s Private Compute Core and its goal to bring more of the AI-powered features we use on-device. However, it also jibes perfectly with the Live Translate feature expected to debut with the Pixel 6, a feature that this change could be connected to — though we should stress, nothing right now indicates offline Live Transcribe will be exclusive to the Pixel 6.
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