If you want to translate a text, paste it into Google Assistant and if you want to translate a website, use Chrome’s built-in translator, but if like me you must translate the applications For basic tasks like ordering a taxi or takeaway, things are not so simple and it depends a lot on the cell phone you have.
On the vast majority of Android phones, translating applications is possible but Google makes you take unnecessary turns and steps which includes filling the phone with disposable screenshots. Join me in this sad story.
10 GOOGLE APPS THAT COULD HAVE SUCCEEDED
I translate everything, but with a lot of steps
What am I going to eat today? Should I go for coffee or better coffee? If I have questions on the PC, I simply select the text and paste it into a translator or use the browser’s built-in translation option. On mobile, it’s not so simple, because most apps don’t let you select text
The way I do it is to use Google Lens text recognition and its translator, which means that what I am going to eat that day depends on two processes: the optical recognition of the text in the source language and its translation into a language that I know. How lucky that Google Lens can do both. What bad luck that he doesn’t know how to do it himself.
All the steps to know what I accompany my Hello Kitty menu with, whether it’s a Coca-Cola or a Fanta.
Google has integrated Google Lens practically everywhere it can, but for some rea son It is not able to scan on screen unless you have a Google Pixel
- Take a screenshot of the app
- Hit the share button before the preview disappears
- Choose Google Lens in the list of applications
- Press the button Translate an objective
Over time I got used to the steps and they don’t take me too long, but it’s curious that in all these years it takes four steps for something so easy and, what’s worse, fill my phone with disposable screenshotsused only for translation.
The translation is excellent, yes, but It’s the process that makes things somewhat exasperating.especially when it’s something that takes multiple steps or not all the text I want to translate is displayed on one screen.
The mess of Google and its Assistant
The worst of all is that it was better beforeback in the days of Google Now on Tap, in 2016. Now on Tap analyzed what was displayed on your mobile screen and offered you additional information, including text selection.
From now on, press, we move on to What is on my screen?optional, ask the assistant and then the problems started. What is on my screen? it never worked well, to the point where Assistant ends up lighting you up half the time as if said command never existed and it’s all just a dream.
In 2016, Now on Tap could select text in any app. Nowadays, its successors work very poorly if you don’t have a Pixel.
It was so bad that Google deleted it only to resurrect it later and has now transmuted it into Search on screen as a suggested option when opening Google Assistant. There’s just one problem: it only works on Google Pixels.
If you don’t have a Google Pixel, you still see a button to launch Google Lens from Google Assistant, but Google Lens can’t analyze what’s on the screen. Instead, you can simply scan something with the camera or a photo (or screenshot) you already have on your phone.
No matter how hard I try, Google Assistant I never know what’s on my screen and it doesn’t matter if I ask it in Spanish or in English with a Massachusetts accent. Even the Assistant’s own suggestion (“scan my screen”) doesn’t do what you’re asked, because it opens Lens (good!) but doesn’t scan the screen anyway (bad!).
Me: “What’s on my screen.” Google: 🤷♀️
This is a new episode from Google that makes users dizzy with changes that get worse, then are corrected with a new feature exclusive to the Google Pixel. The rest, let them keep taking stupid screenshots to translate. Or that they had bought a Pixel.
In Xataka Android | How to translate text from an image on Android
