You Can Make Google Translate Your iPhone’s Default Translation App

Ever since Apple made it easy to change certain default apps on your iPhone, it's become quite convenient to switch away from the company's apps whenever there's a third-party option you prefer. With iOS 18.4, Apple made it possible to change your default translation app as well. First spotted by MacRumors, you can officially set Google Translate as the default app for translation, in case you prefer it over Apple Translate.

Make Google Translate the default translation app on your iPhone

There are a couple of ways to go about this, but I recommend the easiest method. If you never use it, just delete Apple's Translate app from your iPhone, and the device will automatically select Google Translate as the default translation app—assuming you're running the latest version of Google's app. This isn't ideal for people who occasionally rely on Apple Translate, but if you know you don't need it, you might as well save the time and storage space.

You can also do make the switch without deleting any apps. On your iPhone, go to Settings > Apps > Default Apps > Translation and select Google Translate from the list. If you use any other translation apps that support Apple's default apps feature, they should also show up on this page, and you can use your preferred app as the default option.

You can use this feature in any iPhone app that lets you select text. Tap the Translate button in the popover menu above selected text, and you'll see Google Translate's translation in the lower half of your iPhone's screen. It does a good job at detecting the language of selected text and offering a translation in your preferred language (which is picked up from your iPhone's language settings), but there's an option to change languages easily, without leaving whichever app you're using. 

Until this feature showed up, you could still use Google Translate on your iPhone, but it required a few extra taps. This is a small but helpful way to streamline the process.