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Find out how to make Google Translate, DeepL, or another supported third-party iOS app the default translation option on your iPhone or iPad by replacing the built-in Apple Translate app.

Apple’s own Translate app is the native way to convert a word, phrase, or sentence to another language on your iPhone or iPad. It’s a great free app with offline translation, voice translation, conversation mode, and more.

However, the list of supported languages isn’t much to talk about. If you check Apple’s official iOS 26 feature availability page, you’ll notice that as of January 2026, it just supports 21 languages. In comparison, Google Translate supports 249 languages (I counted)!

So, if Apple Translate doesn’t cut it out for you, consider making Google Translate or some other app the default.

How changing the default translation app affects your iPhone

In my tests, I found that changing the default translation app affects the conversions you make when using the ‘Translate‘ option after selecting a word or phrase in Safari, Notes, and elsewhere throughout iOS (screenshot below).

Note that even after changing the default app, Siri and Action button translations continue to use Apple’s own translation stack in the background. Furthermore, if you delete the stock Translate app after setting Google Translate as the default, translations via Siri and the Action button will fail.

Set Google Translate as the default iOS translation app

1. Download Google Translate on your iPhone or iPad. Update it if you already have it installed.
2. Open iOS Settings, then tap Apps at the bottom of the screen.
3. Tap Default Apps from the top.
4. Tap Translation and select Google Translate.

The steps are the same whether you want to set DeepL or another app as the default. Just note that not all translation apps (e.g., Microsoft Translator) support becoming the default app.

And of course, irrespective of which app is the default, you can always open some other app and carry out your translations there.

Also, check out: How to set a default app for opening files on iPhone or iPad

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2026/01/08/ios-default-translation-app/

In this quick tutorial, we’ll show you how to set an alarm for an important reminder on your iPhone in iOS 26 so you get a louder, clearer alert instead of an easy-to-miss notification tone or banner. We’ll also tell you how this works if you have an iPad or Mac.

Out of the box, when a reminder goes off, all you hear is a small tone and see a notification banner. Both these things are easy to miss.

Therefore, to ensure you don’t overlook an important task, iOS 26 lets you mark it as urgent, which in turn automatically creates an alarm for that reminder. These reminder alarms bypass even your iPhone’s DND or other Focus mode.

Set an alarm for your important reminder

1. Update your iPhone to iOS 26.2 or later.
2. Open the Reminders app, add a task, and then tap the info button ⓘ next to its name.
3. Set the Date and Time. To add a precise time, tap the slider and enter the numbers using the keyboard.
4. Turn on the Urgent switch, then tap the checkmark button to set an alarm for this task.

When the reminder time comes…

You’ll see the alarm interface on the full screen of your locked iPhone, showing the reminder name with Snooze and Stop buttons. Here’s what these buttons and other subsequent options do:

Snooze: Just like traditional alarms, tapping this button snoozes the reminder alarm for another 9 minutes, and then you’ll be alerted again. But unlike a clock app alarm, you can’t change its snooze duration from 9 minutes to something else.

Slide to stop: Using slide to stop turns off the alarm and shows a Live Activity on your iPhone screen, displaying the reminder name, when it was due, and an option to reschedule it. Note that you can easily replace the ‘slide to stop’ slider with a simple one-tap ‘stop’ button.

Mark as complete: After stopping the alarm, tap the small circle next to the reminder name to mark it as complete.

Reschedule: Tapping this button takes you to the Reminders app, where you can change the to-do’s time and date and turn off the alarm by disabling the Urgent switch.

Can’t dismiss the Live Activity: In my tests, I found that unlike Live Activities from other apps, I can’t slide to remove the Live Activity for a reminder alarm. Maybe this is a good thing, which ensures you don’t inadvertently miss an important task. Marking the task as complete, rescheduling it, or deleting it seems to be the only way to clear that Live Activity.

Note:

• Reminder alarms are identical to your usual Clock app alarms, except for the blue button instead of orange.
• If your iPhone is unlocked at alarm time, it will appear as a notification banner (screenshot below) with snooze (Z) and stop (X) buttons.

Replace the snooze button with a complete button

As mentioned above, when a reminder alarm goes off on your iPhone, you see the Snooze and Stop buttons. If you don’t think the snooze feature is useful for reminder alarms, you can remove it and get a Complete button in its place. Tapping this button marks the task as completed without opening the Reminders app.

1. Open Settings on your iPhone and tap Apps from the bottom.
2. Select Reminders from the list of applications.
3. Turn on ‘Complete from Alarm‘ under the Urgent Reminders heading to substitute the snooze button with a complete button.

If you have an iPad and Mac

You can set an alarm for a task from the Reminders app on your iPad or Mac running iPadOS 26.2 or macOS Tahoe 26.2.

But the alarm will only trigger on your iPhone, provided the devices are connected to the internet for reminders to sync.

Your iPad and Mac will show the same old notification for that reminder, without the alarm.

Also, check out: How to get early reminders for your tasks on iPhone and Mac

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2026/01/12/reminder-alarms-iphone/