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We've been looking forward to seeing Android 13's "Panlingual" per-app languages feature since we exclusively reported on it last year. Although Google announced it as part of Android 13 DP1, it wasn't actually present in a user-facing way. As of Android 13 DP2, though, it's now live and confirmed to be working — for apps that support multiple languages, anyway.
'Panlingual' feature for per-app language settings planned for Android 13
You might be able to set specific apps to use different languages on Android 13
According to a trusted source, Google is developing a new feature for Android 13 code-named “Panlingual,” which will allow customers to apply language settings on a per-app basis, separately from the system-wide setting. For example, a multilingual person could set social media apps to Spanish and keep their system UI and other apps in a default English setting.
Here's some good news for our multi-lingual readers: Google Maps is finally allowing a separate language from the system language to be set in the Android app. This is an option that probably should have been implemented a long time ago, but at least it's here now.
Voice input on Android is a multilingual mess
Too many different methods with too many settings, and some are locked to your system defaults
Multilingual folks may have whole other worlds open to them as a result of their skills, but it can also be a point of frustration when using an Android phone — at least, when it comes to voice input. Google Assistant and Gboard have it bad enough, but apps like Google Maps and Chrome use a specific voice input method that rigidly follows the system language setting, turning that multilingual advantage into a pointless limitation.
The best language learning apps on Android
It's time to stop copying and pasting into Google Translate
Have you ever wanted to learn a new language, maybe to converse with your neighbor in their native tongue? Or perhaps you’d love to visit a specific country on your bucket list, but you’re anxious about navigating your way around? A language learning app can help immensely, especially when it comes to learning simple words and phrases to help familiarize yourself with the dialect you may have never heard before.
Until recently, you could only officially talk to Google Assistant on your Smart Display in nine languages. With the addition of Italian, we're now at ten.
Amazon just reported that Alexa is now available on over 85,000 devices, a 41% spike from May, from 9,500 brands — up another 28.3% from four months ago. With those kinds of numbers, it is paramount that more thought be put into a user's sense of privacy and security when they own an Alexa product. Today, the company announced a number of improvements, features, and skills it has worked towards in the past year with some new features available from today — notably including the coming addition of Samuel L. Jackson as a voice for Alexa.We've compiled most of these milestones and upgrades as was announced during Amazon's event today into a handy-dandy bullet point list. You may find a couple more details we may have not listed at the Amazon Day One blog here.
Google Assistant is an incredibly powerful tool in the US, and as of late, the personal helper is getting better all around the globe with an ever-growing number of supported languages and actions. This goes hand in hand with Google's recent announcement that it wants to massively expand Assistant all over the world, which has already led to a plethora of new and improved languages. Now, another round of updated and new voices have arrived for even broader international support.
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- According to DH.be, Google had a press conference today in Brussels and announced Assistant for Belgium. That includes not only understanding local questions, but also integrations with third-parties like SNCB, Telenet, Proximus, ING, bpost, and IRM through Actions on Google. The rollout is starting today. Thanks, Zouz!
A couple of weeks ago, we told you Google Assistant works in 30 languages in over 80 countries, but none of those were Belgium. The country wasn't shown as supported in Google's map, but things appear to be changing now. Belgian variants of four languages were just added to Google Assistant's official pages, and they seem to be working on phones... sort of.
Gboard's latest update is out, but there no particularly notable differences have been spotted lurking in the interface. Instead, this update seems to be preparing a couple of changes that will end a year-long run for the Make A GIF feature and bring a couple data privacy options to users.
The latest update to Gboard is making the rounds, and this one appears to be taking another stab at enabling the clipboard manager. Meanwhile, this update also sets the stage for additional features to be added to the overflow menu, an improved Japanese keyboard, a Pixel-specific theme, and more.
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- According to an update made to the Language and Locale Support section of the Actions on Google documentation site, these new higher-quality WaveNet voices will start to roll out on March 4th. The new voices provide users of the Actions on Google platform with voices that meet or exceed a 3.6 mean opinion score (i.e., which provide better perceived quality than the previous TTS voices used).
As with most of Google's products, Assistant is an incredibly powerful tool in the United States, but its functionality is limited in other countries. This is understandable, since there are dozens of other major languages worldwide with countless dialects, and speech recognition for each variation can take a while to develop. At Mobile World Congress, Google announced a massive expansion for Assistant's language support.
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A new version of Gboard hit last night and it appears to be taking a second run at enabling the clipboard that began going live a few months ago. Unfortunately, there are still some problems. Gboard is also taking a run at adding a feature to help your friends and family enable additional languages on their devices, and a tool for exporting your personal dictionary. And as usual, there are dozens of new languages supported for people from around the world.
Gboard already has support for a huge number of languages, but Google still manages to add more every few months. Today, Gboard is adding support for 50 more languages including Alur, Limbu, and Northern Hindko. You probably haven't heard of any of these, but more people can use Gboard in their preferred language today.
The holidays (and CES) are over and the many of Google's app teams are back in the full swing of releasing updates. Gboard's latest version hit this morning few directly visible changes outside of minor wording and color changes. However, there are some interesting things that can be gleaned from wandering through a teardown of the apk.
Google began beta testing Assistant in Turkish with select users several months ago. If you were holding your breath and hoping that the full rollout would come before the end of the year, you can sigh of relief. Turkish support is now official, though it may be rolling out slowly to users.
Gboard launched in December 2016, with support for about 100 different language varieties. Since then, Google has frequently announced large batches of new languages for its Android keyboard; earlier this week, another 50 made it in. All those tongues have added up fast, as Google has announced that two years after its debut, Gboard now supports more than 500 languages.
Every few months, Google adds some new language variants to Gboard. This time around, a whopping 50+ language varieties have been added, most of which you probably haven't heard of. Unfortunately, Google hasn't divulged every single addition, though there are some that are name-dropped.
Translation is tricky, as you know if you've read any web page automatically converted by Google Translate; different tongues have different nuances that are hard to teach to an algorithm. Specifically, the way languages handle gender varies, and these discrepancies previously led to Google Translate to make assumptions and provide potentially inaccurate translations. Now, though, when gender is ambiguous in a translation input, the output will show both masculine and feminine terms, eliminating the guesswork.
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Back in July, a teardown of Gboard v7.4 revealed Google's intent to add a floating keyboard to the experience. With v7.6, it looks like that keyboard is ready for prime time. There are also signs of upcoming Halloween GIFs, plus quite a few new languages.