Is it just me, or is there a Google translation widget on the AppleVis pages?

Hi Ricardo,

First, thank you for your open and honest feedback.

In November 2025, we introduced support for Google Translate on AppleVis; with the goal of making AppleVis content more easily accessible to people who speak languages other than English.

The intended behavior for the language translation widget is that the combo box ("popup button") will be a single element near the top of the page for people to open, but nothing should happen if the user does not interact with it.

Please could you provide more details about what you are experiencing?

Thanks,

Michael

It's iOS 27. Possibly even iOS 27+ your device.
I am running iOS 18.7.8 on an iPhone SE 2022.
The iPhone 13 mini actually has more screen realestate than my device, and yet I do not have this issue at all on the mobile AppleVis website.

Here on my macbook pro m1 2020, the translation box consistantly gets in my way because it seems to be rendered as it's own frame that grabs navigation. It requires constant interacting out of to work.

Hi Michael,

I have also experienced persistent problems with the Google Translate widget on AppleVis.

For me, this occurs on an iPhone 17 Pro, both on iOS 26.x and now on the iOS 27 beta. As Ricardo described, VoiceOver can sometimes appear to become trapped in the translation-widget area. Swiping beyond it takes me to the Safari toolbar, as though the page content is not available. I can get around this by navigating by touch and placing my finger elsewhere on the page, but it is clearly not the expected behaviour.

A more significant problem for me is that the widget often seems to prevent the page from finishing loading properly. VoiceOver continues playing its page-loading sound repeatedly, as though Safari considers the page to be loading indefinitely. This became disruptive enough that I had to turn off VoiceOver’s page-loading sound effect in Settings, specifically because of the AppleVis site.

When I temporarily remove the widget with a content blocker, pages appear to load normally again. Safari’s “Hide Distracting Items” feature can also temporarily resolve the issue, but the widget eventually returns, so that is not a lasting solution.

I also suspect that the widget may interfere with links that should take us directly to new forum comments. For example, when a forum listing says “3 new comments,” activating that link should normally open the discussion at the first unread comment. For me, this often does not work reliably, and I seem to be taken to the wrong position on the page instead. Again, temporarily removing the translation widget appears to improve this behaviour.

I fully understand and support the goal of making AppleVis content available to more people and languages. However, in its present form, this implementation seems to create substantially more accessibility and usability problems than benefits for those of us who do not use it.

At a minimum, it would be very helpful if logged-in users could permanently disable the Google Translate widget—perhaps through an account-level preference. That would preserve the feature for people who need it, while allowing others to use the site without the resulting navigation and loading issues.

Hi all,

We had no idea that the Google Translate widget was causing any issues at all; so huge thanks to Ricardo for bringing this to our attention and to Soren and Cliff for sharing experiences and additional information.

I have adjusted display settings for the widget, and it should now display as a link rather than a combo box. To change the language, a user can activate the link and then select the link for the language they wish to use.

In my limited testing, it appears to me that VoiceOver does now indeed see the widget is a link - though I would very much appreciate it if anyone who previously experienced issues with the widget could please test now and report back your findings.

Thank you again to everyone who provided feedback.

This is how the language control reads out to me with VoiceOver, using mobile Safari on iOS 18.7.8. Have not yet tried it on my device running iOS 26.5.2.
On a sidenote, Michael, the appleVis logo at the top of the page, just before the language controls, normally when you double tap on those it will refresh the page, taking you back to the main page if you're, say in a thread. However, whenever I double tap on that link, voiceover focus tends to jump me up into the status bar of my iPhone.
I may have mentioned this to you before, but I cannot remember. This happens both on iOS 18.7.8, and iOS 26.5.2. Both on iPhone SE devices.
Usually, attempting it a second time will be a success, and the page will refresh back to the start page.

HTH.

Before it was implemented, I only swiped twice in order to return to the homepage and continue browsing. Now I need 10 swipes and I can’t disable it. I think I need 4 more seconds on average to return to the homepage. 10 times, 40 seconds. It stacks up fast.

Hi Panais,

I am first and foremost, appreciative of the feedback. As appreciative as I am, I am not able to replicate what you are reporting in your above comment and would really appreciate any specifics or additional detail you can provide. Thanks.

Let’s say I am reading a thread and I want to go back to the homepage, in order to read another thread.

What I do is swipe up with two fingers to go to the top of the page, and then swipe right until I get to the AppleVis logo, which brings me to the homepage of the website.
Before this translate thing was implemented, the AppleVis logo was to write swipes away after swiping up with two fingers. Now it is 10 swipes away.
Even if I set my router to navigate by links, when focus gets on the translation widget, the router changes from navigation mode and it reads me the URL.
It is super annoying and time consuming, I’m telling you dear Michael. at least for me.

Hi Panais,

Thank you for the additional detail. 😊 Below are some follow-up questions:

• When you are trying to go to the top of the page, what gesture are you using to do this? Are you using the three-finger swipe down to scroll up and refresh the page, or something else?
• Today I changed the appearance of the Google Translate widget, and it should now be a link instead of a combo box. Is there any difference for you?

Thanks,
Michael

Select language, menu pop-up

That is how the widget shows up on the front page on mobile Safari.

Hi all,

To those who previously reported experiencing issues with our implementation of the Google Translate widget, are these issues persisting for you still? If so, has there been any change (either positive or negative) in the behavior you are experiencing?

Thanks,

Michael

I think that the appearance of the translation widget depends on what google thinks your native language is.... Probably based on location. So of course for people in the U.s it'd not show the full popup as the website already is in english. For me though, it showes a popup in arabic offering to translate the page.

Hello Michael! That’s really awesome that this feature can and does bring more people together, but my English is C2 and I’d like to be able to completely remove this widget from my settings. How can I do it?
Thank you in advance :)

@Jim Pickens - This observation is incredibly helpful. Do you also get a popup from Safari (or whatever browser you are using) offering to translate the page too? When we were researching possible solutions for easy language translation, one of the suggestions made to us was that people could just use the browser's built-in translation capabilities. I would be curious as to your and others' input on this as to what solution actually works best in practice; what you would prefer; and, if you had to make a recommendation, what you would recommend for newer users.
- @Eyesfreesight - We currently don't have a way to disable the popup. @Jim Pickens' observation above helps explain why some see it and some do not, but unfortunately we don't currently have a solution in place for those who do get the popup and wish to disable it entirely.