Cibo looks at foreign menus and shows you what you're about to eat

Cibo Lifestyle Photo (Image credit: Good Snooze)

What you need to know

Cibo is a new app that can look at menus in foreign languages and show you what meals are on offer.
The app looks at the text, translates it, and shows you a picture of the food.

Going on vacation is pretty sweet, but sometimes knowing what food to order is more stressful than it should be, especially when you're in a foreign country and don't speak the language. That's what Cibi is for — it's a new "visual menu translator" that looks at foreign menus and shows you images of what you're about to order.

What makes Cibi so cool is the way the app uses your camera and then highlights words on-screen for you to tap. Do that, and you'll be shown images of the food in question so you'll always know exactly what you're choosing.

Last week I was on holiday in Italy and I obviously went to a lot of restaurants. I don't speak Italian, so I ended up googling a lot of the dishes to see what they would look like. That got annoying pretty fast so I made Cibo, an app to help you figure out what's for dinner!

Cibo Lifestyle Searching Photo (Image credit: Good Snooze)

Quickly search for photos of food menu items by selecting them with your camera.When you're eating at a restaurant abroad it can be tedious to constantly have to search for the menu items to find pictures of what they look like.Cibo makes it easy for you. Just point your camera at the menu and select any of the dishes. It will show you a list of photos to give you a better idea of what to expect.

Cibo is in the App Store right now and is a free download. Users can scan 50 menu items for free, with an optional in-app purchase unlocking the app beyond that.

Want to give it a try? You can download Cibo from the App Store right now. Cibo is already looking like the best iPhone app for those who spend time in countries where they don't know the native language — and like to eat!

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.