iPhone 5 Approved in Brazil, Manual Suggests Portuguese Support for Siri

[MacRumors]

Following word today that the iPhone 5 will launch in India on October 26, MacRumors has learned that the iPhone 5 has been approved for sale in Brazil by Anatel, the country's telecommunications regulatory authority. The approval was posted yesterday with Foxconn's factories in Brazil and China listed as assembly locations, but there is not yet any word on when Apple plans to launch the device in the world's fifth most-populous country of nearly 200 million people.

Perhaps most interestingly, the documentation filed as part of the review includes the manual for the iPhone 5 as it will be distributed in Brazil, and the section addressing Siri provides input examples in Portuguese, suggesting that the iPhone 5 will launch with support for the language in Brazil.

iPhone 5 Siri instructions with examples in Portuguese

The Brazilian manual for the iPhone 4S (PDF) provided instructions translated into Portguese, but the actual examples of acceptable input remained in English.

iPhone 4S Siri instructions with examples in English

iOS 6 already brought new and expanded support for a number of languages in Siri, but Brazilian Portuguese was not included in the list.

Additional country and language support for Canada (English and Canadian French), China (Mandarin), Hong Kong (Cantonese), Italy (Italian), Korea (Korean), Mexico (Spanish), Spain (Spanish), Switzerland (Italian, French, German), Taiwan (Mandarin), US (Spanish)

Apple has, however, been working hard to expand Siri's capabilities, and it appears that further increases in the language support are still part of the company's plan.

(Thanks, Cassio!)

Article Link: iPhone 5 Approved in Brazil, Manual Suggests Portuguese Support for Siri

[BRLawyer]

Excellent news..!

[needfx]

just wondering what percentage of those 200 million people is apple's target?

[Starship77]

I don't mind using Siri in english, but the problem comes when I need to send a message to my brazilian friends. Even if the person knows english well, it can be very weird to use a different language to send messages to your friends in your own country, and this solves the problem!

I really didn't expect it so soon! Good thing Apple has a lot more love for Brazil these days. Now, my only wish is official Apple retail stores!

----------

Originally Posted by needfx

just wondering what percentage of those 200 million people is apple's target?

A big one for sure! Brazilian economy is stronger than ever and it's impressive how many Apple products you see around now in Brazil compared with just a few years ago...

[Mainyehc]

What about PT-PT? I know we are a small country in comparison and that the portuguese economy is in the gutter but, then again, so is Spain's and they already have Siri (the fact that upperclass people, twits or otherwise, don't seem to be affected much by the crisis also helps).

Besides, I can confirm there are loads of iOS devices in use here, and if I were to guess, now that the 4S moved further down in price, the adoption of Siri-compatible devices can only go up much faster.

Anyway, I also wouldn't mind using Siri in english but, as of now, it's little more than a gimmick as it, as expected, won't even recognize portuguese names.

[luiz.fabio]

Originally Posted by needfx

just wondering what percentage of those 200 million people is apple's target?

According to Google numbers 14% of Brazilian population own smartphones. This is about 28 million people. Apple's share in Brazilian smartphone market is something between 20% and 30%. So Apple has from 5.6 to 8.4 million clients here. It's a lot of people.

But there's more. Among Apple user base, about 62% buy an paid app every month! It's also a lot of money and a very important market to Apple. Why? Because we have a lot of poor people wanting smartphones.

Brazil is a place where Android or Windows Phone cheap devices could eclipse Apple's market share easily. But with Brazil being the 5th world economy Apple won't let that happen. That's why they will produce iPad Mini, iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 on a local Foxconn factory: to escape the insane import taxes and be able to sell these devices with lower prices.

[saotomefirst]

Originally Posted by luiz.fabio

According to Google numbers 14% of Brazilian population own smartphones. This is about 28 million people. Apple's share in Brazilian smartphone market is something between 20% and 30%. So Apple has from 5.6 to 8.4 million clients here. It's a lot of people.

Thanks for the numbers. I only had a vague idea about them

Originally Posted by luiz.fabio

But there's more. Among Apple user base, about 62% buy an paid app every month! It's also a lot of money and a very important market to Apple. Why? Because we have a lot of poor people wanting smartphones.

Brazil is a place where Android or Windows Phone cheap devices could eclipse Apple's market share easily. But with Brazil being the 5th world economy Apple won't let that happen. That's why they will produce iPad Mini, iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 on a local Foxconn factory: to escape the insane import taxes and be able to sell these devices with lower prices.

Well, that's not true. The reason why they make iDevices in Brazil is indeed to escape the high import taxes - and also to benefit from some of Brazil's trading agreements like Mercosul. However, iDevice's prices haven't dropped since Foxcomm moved in Brazil. And why they should? People were already buying an iPhone for R$ 2000.00+ (US$1000.00+), and they still are. Therefore the only thing that changed is that their profit from selling in there increased.

Still, there is space for aggressive growth. Many Android users - especially tablet ones - are susceptible to trading their devices for iDevices, mainly because of the poor quality and significant differences in performance between Android devices. On the other hand, iDevices grant you quality, meaning if they state they do something, they do it well.

As an example, my father - a proud owner of an iPhone 4 - convinced one of his friends to replace her 5th Android tablet - which was stolen, and the ones before that were either unusable or stopped working for some reason - for an iPad. After 2 weeks of use they meet again, and she stated: "if I knew the iPad was this good I would've never even bothered to buy the others". Now they are inseparable friends, and she even bought an iPhone to match it XD

[nexx27]

Well done Apple!! I'm waiting for that for a long time... Now it make sense to upgrade from iphone4 to 4s or 5...

[heffeque]

Originally Posted by Starship77

A big one for sure! Brazilian economy is stronger than ever and it's impressive how many Apple products you see around now in Brazil compared with just a few years ago...

You must live in a different Brazil than I do. Brazil is growing at a fast pace, yes, but most people still buy cars without air-bags (Latin NCAP videos (here) are scary as hell), new roads are full of holes in just a couple of days, most people have cheap dual-SIM cell-phones and the social inequality is still huge.

It's true that there are more and more people with smartphones, but... it's also true that a lot of people here buy PS3s, big screen TVs and expensive smartphones while living in 3rd world houses, but I still don't see many people using/showing iPhones probably because of two reasons: fear of assaults (extremely common in Brazil's cities) and that they're horribly expensive compared to 1st world countries (the cheapest iPhone 4S is 980 dollars compared to 710 dollars in Europe), so only the small upper-class and some middle-class with their priorities mixed up have iPhones.

Some "European-like" small cities in the southern part of Brazil (below Curitiba) may have more wide-range adoption, but certainly, out of the 200 million people that live in this country, not even 10% can afford owning an iPhone 5, that's for sure.

[hamkor04]

another millions of new users