WhatsApp is reportedly bringing Google Translate directly to chats

WhatsApp may not be the most feature-rich messaging app for phones, but it's by far the most used messaging app in the world. The app's focus on end-to-end encryption is a pretty big reason why, plus, the company has always come out with user-focused updates in the past, be it fun, artsy changes or just visual updates. This time around, WhatsApp is bringing live translation for messages in chat.

This feature, spotted in the latest Android beta update (version 2.24.15.8), utilizes Google's live translation technology and operates entirely on the user's device, which means that the messages and their translations never leave the phone.

To use the translation feature, users will likely need to download language packs for the specific languages they want to translate between. The biggest benefit of this feature would be the ability to translate messages on the fly, without switching to a different app. This is especially helpful for overcoming language barriers - talking to friends in different languages would become significantly easier.

It's important to note that this feature is still under development and a release date for the public version is unknown. Language support will be pretty limited at launch, but we can expect more details and information about additional languages in future updates.