On April 24, 2025, DeepL posted on X that “DeepL is now available as a default translator app on iPhones!” Before the latest iOS update was available, the only possible default translation app on iPhones was Apple Translate. The default apps option itself was rolled out with iOS 18.2 in December 2024.

Evidently, Apple is giving developers the possibility of tweaking their code so that, upon downloading their translation app, users can now make it the default, instead of the Apple Translate app.

The update, which requires iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2 or later, enables users to select preferred apps for web browsing, email, and translation. To customize default apps, users can navigate to Settings, then Apps, and finally to Default Apps/Translation.

At time of writing, only DeepL shows up as an option to be a default translation app instead of Apple Translate. This would indicate that other translation apps downloaded and installed (e.g., Google Translate, Microsoft Translator, iTranslate etc.) have not yet jumped through hoops to become possible default options on iPhones.

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The Apple developer site/Translation UI Provider gives translation app developers a step-by-step explanation on how to prepare their app to become the default translation option on iPhones and iPads. “If your app provides translation service and you want it to optionally become the default translation app, you need to add an entitlement, access key, app extension, and a UI,” states the process description.

Those four requirements are further unpacked on the developer site. Basically, the app must have a “real” translation capability, meaning that it must use a local model or a cloud API, have an entitlement that tells the OS the bundle it can appear in the user’s default list, have translation UI provider network access, and a minimal SwiftUI scene (a view hierarchy in the UI, an Apple’s sample of about 40 lines of code that can be leveraged).

Integrating a custom translation feature in an app for iOS seems to be a straightforward process, so other translation apps will likely follow suit.