Gizmodo’s Review of the Google Pixel Buds ⇥ gizmodo.com

Adam Clark Estes of Gizmodo does not like Google’s Pixel Buds very much. Even a feature I was very excited about — real-time in-ear translation — sounds like a broken experience in practice:

I did get the translation feature to work, by the way, and it’s just as confusing as everything else about the Pixel Buds. You’d think that you could just tap the right earbud and ask Google to translate what you’re hearing, but it’s more complicated than that. You do have to tap the earbud and ask Google to translate, but then you have to open up the Google Translate app and hold your phone in front of your foreign language-speaking friend. And, of course, your phone must be a Google Pixel or Pixel 2.

The dream is to be able to have a relatively normal conversation with someone whose language you don’t speak, right? That’s clearly not what you get here. That’s a shame, because it’s something Google ought to be able to do very well — or, at least, that’s the promise of a company that mines the world’s data, isn’t it?