Chirp
Put the phone down and talk.
Say what you speak. Say who you are talking to. Then talk — either of you, in either order — and the phone says it in the other language out loud, so they hear it too.
iPhone, iOS 26. Everything runs on the device — no account, no server, no network. Not on the App Store yet.
The idea
Hands-free
During a conversation you touch nothing and read nothing. Which direction a sentence travels is decided by who just spoke, never by a control you have to find.
Out loud, to them
Not into an earbud. The reply comes back on the loudspeaker in the other person’s language, which is the half that actually finishes the errand.
Offline
Shops, stations and pharmacies have no signal. Speech, translation and the voice all run on the phone, in airplane mode.
Using it
1Choose your language
Once, on the first screen. It is also the language Chirp itself is written in.
2Choose theirs
It downloads there and then, so it works later with no signal.
3Start it without the screen
Action button, Back Tap, Control Centre or Siri. The phone can stay in your pocket.
4Talk
Either of you, in either order. The cat tells you what it is doing without a word on the screen.
5Read it back
Afterwards, not during — a short summary and every exchange, kept for 30 days.
Silence beats a wrong answer
The gate
A wrong dosage at a pharmacy counter is worse than saying nothing. Every turn passes a confidence gate before it is spoken, and every numeral is checked against the numeral it came from — “take five” against “take fifty” is the error this product must not make.
When it is unsure
It says nothing and taps twice. That is the design working, not the design failing.
What it does not do
No accounts
Nothing to sign into. Conversations live on your device and nowhere else; deleting the app deletes all of them.
No tracking
No analytics, no advertising identifier, no third-party SDKs, and nothing reported to anyone. The app contains no networking code of its own. This page is not measured either.
No transcript
Nothing scrolls past while you are talking. Reading a screen is what stops you talking to the person in front of you.
No swap arrow
The most iconic control in translator apps, and Chirp has no use for it. Direction follows whoever spoke.
Details
Platform
iPhone, iOS 26
Translates
19 languages
Interface
22 languages
Network
None — the app contains no networking of its own
Recordings
None. Text only, 30 days, then deleted
Accessibility
Dynamic Type, VoiceOver, Reduce Motion
Cost
20 conversations free, each as long as you like. Then a 14-day pass, or one payment for good. No subscription.