iPhone V3.0.X Chinese pinyin input problem

[B74A]

I used pinyin input for simplified Chinese when my iPhone was V2. Pinyin is the romanization that enables you to write chinese signs without having to draw them, for those who might wonder. If you write "nihao" it makes two charaters, ni (you) and hao (well, good). But since I had version 3.0 and 3.0.1, it does not recognize "a" in any pinyin word. So if I write ni it is OK, but hao is ignored, as if it was non-pinyin spelling. If i write "yi" it is OK, I get the choices to write for instance "one", "er" is also OK, means two, but when I write "san" (three) it does not work, as there is an a in "san". "si", four, works, and "wu", five, but liu (six) does not work. As soon as I get to the a in "san" or "hao", it removes all hanzi (chinese signs) and think it is western spelling only!

I searched the forums here, and also google. There are lots of (Mandarin) Chinese speaking people using iPhones, so I am amazed I could not find anything about it! Maybe it is all written in Chinese, too complicated for me to read as my level is quite basic. EDIT: I know now, because this bug is only apparent if you use a Danish keyboard also. See my updated post below.

I hope someone can tell me how to fix this. Or maybe my phone is a one-off, something wrong while updating to 3.0? EDIT: This is not the case, I just tried it on an iPhone 3Gs, straight out of the box, exactly the samme bug.

Thank you all in advance for helping me find the solution.

 

[B74A]

I have now isolated this down to a specific bug, which is mainly relevant to a few users only, as it is only a certain setup that will cause this error.

First of all, there is nothing wrong with "u" as I wrote above, only "a". This is because I could not spell six, which is "liu" and NOT "lieu". If I spell it correct, liu, it works. wu, five, works as well.

But here is the bug:

If you enable multiple keyboards, and these include the DANISH and the CHINESE SIMPLIFIED PINYIN (Or traditional pinyin, it has the same error). If I enter a text message, as an example, and cycle the keyboard inputs going past the Danish keyboard (even without using it), onto the pinyin input, then I cannot use any pinyin word with "a" in it. I have tried this on a brand new iPhone 3Gs 32GB, straight out of the box, it does the same thing. As soon as any pinyin word entered gets to an "a", all hanzi suggestions disappear and only the text is an option, as in "hao", I cannot choose any hanzi, only the letters "hao". Any pinyin word I tried containing "a" does this. I can remove this error temporarily if I choose pinyin, exit whichever app I am in, then reenter. NOW I can enter pinyin correctly, until ... if I cycle the keyboard, past the Danish one and back to pinyin, the error comes BACK. Anyone with an iPhone 3G/3Gs can replicate this problem by enabling both the Danish keyboard as well as one of the two Chinese pinyin options. The error only comes while inside the app, and changing from or cycling through, the Danish keyboard.

I tried with some other languages, enabling 7 different keyboards. As long as I remove the Danish one, I can cycle through all these and the pinyin works ok. I did not try all languages, there might be other similar bugs?

So where do I report this bug?

At least I know what is wrong now ... so I just need to enable pinyin before I enter any app. Not very handy though, if I am in a chat app and need to exit and reenter, just to insert some Chinese signs ...

 

[B74A]

Bugreport.apple.com is getting this feedback now ...

 

[B74A]

Still no change ...

This problem is still there, I hope they fix it soon, as for now, I have to disable either Danish or Chinese pinyin to make the other one work.

 

[korsbakken]

Not just Danish

I am experiencing the same bug, but with Norwegian instead of Danish. Apple must not like Chinese-speaking Scandinavians... Maybe some coding for Å is messing with something, who knows.

Thanks for posting this btw., I have been fretting over this bug for months now and had no idea what the problem was until I read your post. Let's just hope Apple gets its act together and reads bug posts for once.

 

[B74A]

I am experiencing the same bug, but with Norwegian instead of Danish. Apple must not like Chinese-speaking Scandinavians... Maybe some coding for Å is messing with something, who knows.

Thanks for posting this btw., I have been fretting over this bug for months now and had no idea what the problem was until I read your post. Let's just hope Apple gets its act together and reads bug posts for once.

This is interesting. I suppose it would be the same with Swedish then, worth a try. What is puzzling me the most is that it DOES not matter whether you TYPE anything or not. Cycling through the languages in any input screen is enough to provoke this bug, cycling through Danish (or Norwegian) and into pinyin, and the bug is "active". If you then LEAVE it in pinyin, exit whatever app, enter it again, THEN it works fine again. Until you cycle past Danish/Norwegian and back to Chinese pinyin, and here we go again.

https://bugreport.apple.com

Please go here and report it.

Here is my report, you can point to that:

Problem ID 7273297
Keyboard input Chinese pinyin bug, if also using Danish keyboard input
iPhone
Other Bug
03-Oct-2009 10:20 AM
Open

This bug is so obvious, and so well defined and 100% consistent, across iPhone 3G/3Gs/iPod, clearly a firmware bug. Since it is so well defined, the applicable programmer(s) should be able to identify it within minutes. As you say, something with æøåÆØÅ ...