iPhone OS 2.0 Hebrew and Arabic text support

[ajbrehm]

With iPhone OS 2.0 my Hebrew music finally displays as Hebrew titles, as opposed to a number of boxes.

Unfortunately the text is the wrong way around, left-to-right instead of right-to-left. I assume it's the same with the iPhone's support for Arabic text.

Given that Cocoa (and Mac OS X) supports right-to-left scripts I am wondering how much work it was to break that support in the iPhone.

Or did this happen only to me?

 

[Zoowatch]

This is not really related to your question / concern, but I am just glad that, for the first time, Thai langauge is now supported (correctly displayed) on an iPhone / iPod touch. But then, this is also a left-to-right langauge.

 

[ajbrehm]

This is not really related to your question / concern, but I am just glad that, for the first time, Thai language is now supported (correctly displayed) on an iPhone / iPod touch. But then, this is also a left-to-right langauge.

I can relate to your experiences.

I am glad that the iPhone finally supports more scripts (like Cocoa does). But I do wonder why a feature Cocoa and Mac OS X had from the beginning was first removed from the iPhone version of Cocoa and Mac OS X and then re-introduced badly in version 2.

It often seems to me as if Apple have no testers. iWeb has problems dealing with right-to-left scripts as well. A _single_ tester who reads Arabic, Hebrew, or Persian would have noticed!

 

[ahm3d3sa]

Safari Support

I just attached two pictures of my iPhone 3G running 2.0 while visiting two websites.

First website is BBC Arabic (www.bbc.co.uk/arabic). The wording is correctly displayed from right to left but since Arabic is a script; none of the letters are connected

Second website is Haaretz (http://www.haaretz.co.il/). Writing displays correctly in the modern Hebrew blocked script. I've never seen a website in cursive script so....

And now to the issue ajbrehm was facing with the music... Same here bro. The writing comes up left to right and it looks weird lol. At least there is hope that these languages can be supported some day. I'm pretty sure they can do it; there just needs to be an overwhelming call for apple to do so and we will see a functional keyboard like all the other languages available.

 

[somberlaine]

The Arabic script is very hard to read but better than just a bunch of symbols.

 

[taltal]

very cool, finally they've managed.

concerning the Hebrew script: the browser title still shows the letters the wrong way around (from left to right).

EDIT: This has already been posted. sorry.

 

[halsabti]

The Arabic script is very hard to read but better than just a bunch of symbols.

Yah it is hard to read but I don't think it is that far from been fixed.

 

[ajbrehm]

I just attached two pictures of my iPhone 3G running 2.0 while visiting two websites.

Thanks for the pictures.

Seems we are getting there!

 

[FullGaz]

Thanks for the pictures.

Seems we are getting there!

I can't feel satisfied with these tiny steps taken by Apple. It's a little bit like trying to shut users up by providing some minimalistic RTL support but it's not the real McCoy by a long shot: SMSs are still displayed with the text going the wrong direction, no native Arabic or Hebrew keyboard and on OS X iWork still sucks big time with RTL languages.
Windows and Office have supported Hebrew and Arabic perfecly for some time now, I don't understand what's been holding Apple. It's almost insulting...