# The future is upon us \[translation app for iPhone\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 17, 2010, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496 "2010-12-17T10:13:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496/1 "2010-12-17T10:13:28Z")
[Click](http://questvisual.com/) OK, it’s not that impressive if you think logically about it. Babelfish has existed for ages, as have phones with cameras and the ability to install applications. But the immediate impression I got from the software working was pretty impressive. What other cool inventions have you seen that made you think the future was really upon us? ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496/2 "2010-12-17T10:22:54Z")
Please make your link more descriptive. I’m not going to click on some shit that says nothing more than “Click”. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496/3 "2010-12-17T10:34:14Z")
It’s worth the [click](http://questvisual.com/) though. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496/4 "2010-12-17T10:35:14Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > Please make your link more descriptive. I’m not going to click on some shit that says nothing more than “Click”. You should, because it’s awesome. (and even though the subject is lacking, the rest of his post makes it pretty damn clear what the link has to do with). [QUOTE=Capt. Ridley’s Shooting Party] OK, it’s not that impressive if you think logically about it. [/QUOTE] Really? I think it’s even more impressive if you think about it. It’s (seemingly) finding text of varying fonts in the non-ideal, program unfriendly, real world. And is able to seamlessly replace it with text that (again, seemingly) matches the colors and font of the original, all in perfect real-time, and without leaving any fragments of the original behind. It really is impressive. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496/5 "2010-12-17T10:36:18Z")
Ya know, I went and downloaded that after watching the video in your link, and I gotta warn people: the app doesn’t do that. What you download is a free version that will reverse letters or delete them. It doesn’t work all that well, as it can’t recognize many fonts and it never “settles” into anything. When I tried to use it, it would constantly scramble letters, as if trying to find the best “match”. In order for the app to do translations, you have to pay an extra $5. That’s to translate Spanish to English. If you want to do English to Spanish, that’s another $5. So the program goes from “nifty” because it’s free to “not very useful at all” and costing $10 for any hint of real functionality. I didn’t pay the $10 (or even $5) so I can’t say how well it translates. But if the way it worked on “reversing” regular English type is any indication, it would constantly be scrambling shit up, trying to find the best match for each letter, thus rendering any “translation” as incomprehensible gibberish. ---
**Author:** ![mittu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@mittu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mittu)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496/6 "2010-12-17T10:36:20Z")
Damn that is awesome, shame it only does Spanish and English so far but holy cow that is impressive (yet not that impressive, as you point out) ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496/7 "2010-12-17T10:36:54Z")
It’s called Word Lens, and it’s an iPhone app that can take pictures of text and translate it into different languages. At least that’s the take I get from their youtube video. Interesting, but probably not very useful in the US. Way more useful for tourists in other countries. Downloading it now since it’s free. Wait scratch that. You need an iPhone 4 to use it. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496/8 "2010-12-17T10:38:29Z")
> [@EvilTOJ](#): > > It’s called Word Lens, and it’s an iPhone app that can take pictures of text and translate it into different languages. At least that’s the take I get from their youtube video. Interesting, but probably not very useful in the US. Way more useful for tourists in other countries. Downloading it now since it’s free. Wait scratch that. You need an iPhone 4 to use it. You should have read my post above before you downloaded. I think you’ll be disappointed. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496/9 "2010-12-17T10:44:05Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > Please make your link more descriptive. I’m not going to click on some shit that says nothing more than “Click”. Then don’t click it. kthxbye. ---
**Author:** ![mittu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@mittu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mittu)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496/10 "2010-12-17T10:48:54Z")
You don’t need an iPhone4, it works on my 3GS. It probably works better on the 4 due to the higher quality camera but even on the 3GS it does a pretty good job when the writing is clear. It does struggle on stylised fonts. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496/11 "2010-12-17T10:49:24Z")
Yargh, the second quote in my last post was mistakenly attributed to Rigamarole instead of Capt. Ridley’s Shooting Party. Apologies. ---
**Author:** ![Montgomery0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/0ea827/32.png) [@Montgomery0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Montgomery0)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496/12 "2010-12-17T13:39:58Z")
Is it wrong that when the phone translated “clothing optional beach” and the guy turned the phone vertically, I was thinking he was going to show us a different app? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496/13 "2010-12-17T17:26:44Z")
I’d pay for the French and Japanese translation packs. If they existed. [The MacRumors article](http://www.macrumors.com/2010/12/17/word-lens-offers-real-time-ios-language-translation/) has more details and an interesting discussion link. In the discussion, there’s a link to a [Chinese/English software](http://www.pleco.com/) that does roughly the same thing, but it doesn’t overlay the video feed in the same way. Seems like it would be best for translating short things like signs. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496/14 "2010-12-17T17:30:16Z")
Eh, so it’s not completely there yet - I still think it’s awfully cool. How long until we get software that does real-time translations in our earpiece for visiting foreign countries? ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496/15 "2010-12-17T17:46:20Z")
I have a feeling [bad translations from Word Lens](http://www.flickr.com/photos/704race/5269140638/) will be a cheezburger network site by next week. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496/16 "2010-12-17T17:52:56Z")
My hovercraft is full of eels. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-is-upon-us-translation-app-for-iphone/564496/17 "2010-12-17T18:10:10Z")
Added info to thread title to clarify topic.