Better Translate vs Google Translate
The Better Translate team ·
Every translation app can translate a menu. Better Translate is built around the
conversation that happens next.
The screen is split, and their half is upside down
Put the phone down between you. Your half faces you. The far half is rotated 180 degrees so the
person opposite reads it upright and answers on their own side. Both halves are live at the same
time. Nobody turns the phone around, nobody hands it over, and nobody waits their turn holding
somebody else's phone.
That is the whole product. It is a different shape of tool from an app you point at something
and read: this one is designed for two people using one phone at once, which is what actually
happens when you are travelling and need to say something back.
Side by side
Why this one costs money
Nothing about you is the product here. No account, no advertising identifier, no analytics,
nothing sold or shared beyond the translation itself. Your audio never leaves the phone, because it
is transcribed on the device. A menu photograph is read there too, and is sent only on a fast
connection, for that one request.
Google Translate is free because Google sells ads and you are signed in while you use it. For
a street sign that is fine. For asking a waiter what is in something, we would rather not be a
company that has anything about you at all.
Built for the conversation, not the lookup
Translation needs a connection, which is the trade we took: a translator good enough for a
handwritten board at the back of a bar beats one that also works on a plane. We benchmark that
against real photographed menus every time the pipeline changes and
publish the numbers, which nobody else in this
category does.
Get it
If the part that keeps going wrong is the conversation, not the lookup, that is the specific
thing Better Translate is for. $23.99 a year, no account, cancel in iOS Settings.