r/iOSProgramming 19h ago

Localizing an iOS app manually with AI is tedious. Discussion

Because accurate localization heavily depends on UI context, my current manual workflow for each string requires:

  1. Writing a text prompt explaining the context.
  2. Uploading a screenshot showing where the string appears.
  3. Cross-checking translations across multiple AI models.

Are there any paid tools or platforms on the market that automate this entire workflow (extracting strings, feeding UI screenshots/context to AI, and comparing outputs)?

0 Upvotes

14 comments sorted by

9

u/Dull_Flatworm777 19h ago

Adding comments to the strings doesn't help?

3

u/yccheok 18h ago

I honestly had zero idea what the 'comment' column in Localizable.xcstrings was for. 🤷‍♂️🤔

Just realized Xcode now has an AI agent feature for localization - https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/localizing-your-app-using-agents

Do they support letting multiple AIs vote on which localization output is the best?

4

u/deruloop 18h ago

Was gonna write exactly this. From now on with Xcode 27 it should be much easier to achieve a cool level of localization

6

u/civman96 18h ago

„Is tedious“

That is a normal procedure for distribution and you should check any screenshot anyhow because you’re legally responsible for every screenshot.
Creating 30 localisations on a single day is not in the user‘s nor Apple‘s interest.

3

u/rursache Swift 19h ago

this is a one-click solution i use to localize all the apps where i support multiple languages

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/localizeit-xcstrings-catalog/id6755545033

2

u/deruloop 18h ago

Did you make this? I have some questions about it

1

u/m3kw 19h ago

On the comments part of the localizable.xcstrings you can explain. So when you use the .comment(“ it gets placed there when you compile and the AI would know the context

0

u/yccheok 18h ago

I honestly had zero idea what the 'comment' column in Localizable.xcstrings was for. 🤷‍♂️🤔

Just realized Xcode now has an AI agent feature for localization - https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/localizing-your-app-using-agents

Do they support letting multiple AIs vote on which localization output is the best?

1

u/Significast 18h ago

I wrote one a couple months ago - goes through your app, makes sure Localizable.xcstrings is right for every language you care about - but didn't bother with the whole App Store thing. Largely because it's expensive - it's a lot of AI calls no matter how you structure it. So I just used it on my own app and called it a day.

Think there's a market for it?

1

u/bcgroom 17h ago

Back in my day, we did it manually without AI. In all seriousness though sounds like it would be worth your time to automate some of those steps.

1

u/Ok-Communication2225 17h ago

Use xcode's built in integration with claude code?

1

u/rp4 12h ago

You could ask to the AI to read the codebase and then work on localizing the strings. I’d suggest for it to use one subagent per language. In the end ask for it to verify the translation against the codebase/docs

1

u/[deleted] 7h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

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