Google has finally released an iPhone-native version of its Google Translate app, letting Apple users knock down some language barriers with its speech-to-text and text-to-speech capabilities.

Last month we looked at a new version of Google Translate for Android. At the time, the only Translate option for the iPhone was to use the HTML5 implementation Google put together last summer. While this new iOS version is largely identical to the online version, iPhone users may appreciate having the option of a native app for once.

Using Translate, you can capture speech or directly enter in text to begin the conversion process; while being able to recognize spoken language is definitely the cooler option, you get far more flexibility with the latter, supporting 50-odd languages. After Google works its translation magic, you can hear your results spoken back to you in any of the 23 languages the app knows.

There’s no word on support for the “conversation” feature added to the Android version last month, but as that was a very limited English-Spanish demo, Google may be waiting for increased compatibility before making the function more available.

Google Translate is available now in the App Store.

Source: Google