Use Lingual with Siri To Translate 35 Languages [Jailbreak Tweak]

Lingual

The latest jailbreak for iPhone 4S has opened up a lot of new opportunities for developers to create tweaks for Apple’s virtual assistant, Siri, finally adding some of the functionality that users have been craving. Hopefully, Apple is taking some of these to heart and will release features like this in the next big update to Siri. We previously told you about a few tweaks to let you tweet and toggle settings with Siri. Now, a couple of new tweaks have made their way to Cydia, which will allow you to use Siri as a universal translator for 35 different languages.

To do this you’ll actually need 2 different packages. The first is called AssistantExtensions. This 3rd party software allows developers to create Siri plugins that add new features to your assistant. One of those plugins is known as Lingual, by the CodeThemed Team. This plugin allows you to translate English to 35 different languages. The development team hopes to add reverse translation in a future update, which will let you translate those languages back to English, as well. The tweak uses Microsoft’s Bing translation API. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as accurate as Google’s translate app, but still manages to do the job most of the time.

Developers who would like to create plugins for AssistantExtensions can read the developer’s tutorial to get their learn on. The developer of AssistantExtensions posted a short video showing how to do in-line Tweeting, a YouTube Search, and a Chat Box feature. Chat Box is an AI extension that enhances Siri’s abilities to converse and feed you information. Both tweaks are in the early stages, but already show a lot of promise.