PicTranslator is an iPhone app that does exactly what its name describes; it translates text from pictures taken by your iPhone's camera into English. Now, Fotozio's PicTranslator may not be the first app of its kind in the App Store, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with a little competition.
PicTranslator is extremely easy to use, which is a plus for any scatterbrained traveler in need of a quick translation. Simply launch the app and take a picture of the text in question, do a little image cropping to get only the text you need within the parameters, and then hit translate. The app sends your text off to a magical place where it will be translated and sent right back to you. During the translation period, since it can take a little bit of time, the app offers up some interesting information about things nearby to keep you busy.
PicTranslator is available in the App Store for free and it includes one language of your choice, but others can be purchased as an in-app purchase at any time. The 16 supported languages are priced between $.99 and $1.99 separately, or you can purchase all of them at once for $2.99. PicTranslator currently supports these languages: Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French*, German*, Greek, Hungarian, Italian*, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese*, Russian, Spanish*, Swedish, and Turkish. The languages with an asterisk include audio pronunciation as well.
PicTranslator isn't perfect, however. If you aren't using an iPhone 3GS, you should probably stick to translating large text. If pictures are taken at an angle, are blurry, or if some other force of nature is causing some wackiness, your results may not be accurate. The app also requires an Internet connection of some kind to do the translating.
Over time, PicTranslator should only become more and more accurate as the number of people who utilize it grows. The developers also plan on adding even more languages to choose from in the future.
Embedded below is a video demonstration of PicTranslator in action.
