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Safari is biased towards American users
- Thread starter goodmacman
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Funny, I'd never even thought of this; if I type a Japanese search term into the Safari box (or the default "US" Google page) Google is quite happy to spit back plenty of Japanese results, no questions asked. Seems pretty international to me.
The only time I actively go to google.co.jp is when I want the checkbox to only show pages in Japanese (language, not located in Japan--what's the point of that?!), and even then only when I'm searching for an English movie title but I want Japanese pages that are using it--a relatively rare circumstance.
The only time I actively go to google.co.jp is when I want the checkbox to only show pages in Japanese (language, not located in Japan--what's the point of that?!), and even then only when I'm searching for an English movie title but I want Japanese pages that are using it--a relatively rare circumstance.
Makosuke said:
You serious? Of course a search engine would be able to tell the difference betweeen two completely different languages, ie English Vs Japanese, but the American English Vs British English is a completely different kettle of fish.
Type "Bonjour" into the search and I'm sure you'll get some french, it doesn't really help searching out localised English though does it?
To all those that say Apple is an American company, when you sell a product internationally, you're subject to a lot more than the local home grown market, some of us tend to dislike monopolies.
I'm not saying that Safari shouldn't have localized searches, including for the UK, just being a bit surprised (as perhaps the Safari programmers would be) that searching the UK version of Google would be that important. I can see if you preferred searching UK domains, it makes sense, but after doing a test, the results it provides are indeed different so it now makes more sense to me.ecksmen said:
Keep in mind that Safari DOES do localized searches, just not for the UK. If you have a non-English language set as your primary in the International panel, Safari automatically sends you to that country's version of Google. So if I put Italian at the top, I get the Italian Google, even if I search for an English word. If I put Japanese at the top, I get the Japanese Google.
...but, in something of a bug, if I put British or Canadian English at the top, I get the US Google. I suppose Apple's engineers incorrectly assumed it didn't make much difference.
Out of curiosity (and in a learning experience), I did a quick comparison using "flavour" in the UK and Generic English versions of Google, and I found thus: In the UK version you get different advertising (some German, actually), and of course you can only show .uk pages if you click the box, but if you just "search the web" you get different results from each.
Not only are the top 10 hits somewhat different, but the US Google reports 26.9 million pages, while the UK one (again, searching "the web", not .uk pages, of which there are only 5.3 million) gives you 21.6 million. I guess the different results are because the UK Google weights the score based on UK pages, but where are those other 5 million pages hiding?
yg17 said:We kicked your ass in the American Revolution, thus, we get to force our Google on you
Lovely, thats just lovely..
Ive wondered why apple has a smaller market share internationally, looking at this thread gives me a idea, apple doesnt really support their international clients as well as their US clients, google and safari aside, just look at the bloated prices some of us international folk have to pay.... Yeah...
I think the Revolutionary War comment was just an UNSAID joke everyone knew was coming...
Seriously though, all you UK people, how about you find a way for the pound not to KICK OUR AMERICAN DOLLAR'S ass and then Apple can charge less.
Seriously...
Lollypop said:Lovely, thats just lovely..
I think the Revolutionary War comment was just an UNSAID joke everyone knew was coming...
Seriously though, all you UK people, how about you find a way for the pound not to KICK OUR AMERICAN DOLLAR'S ass and then Apple can charge less.
Seriously...
"Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."goodmacman said:
Proverbs 16:18
appleretailguy said:I think the Revolutionary War comment was just an UNSAID joke everyone knew was coming...
Seriously though, all you UK people, how about you find a way for the pound not to KICK OUR AMERICAN DOLLAR'S ass and then Apple can charge less.
Seriously...
I admit that I might have overreacted to the joke, but its not just about the currency, there are a lot of places that have no apple support at all. Apple has it easy in their local turf bacause its their local turf, they can have things like the iTMS, sell videos ect, and they have a bigger market share as result, over here (SA) people still think that mac computers can be on the same network as a windows box...
Face facts folks the best I.T. envirnoment for being international and localising its products is the stuff from..........Redmond
appleretailguy said:
oops.. meant can't... my bad! Point is that apple support for international countries are sometimes so bad that basic myths are still there.
It's worth noting that there's a big difference between Apple's corporate presence in the country, and their software support for it.Lollypop said:
That is, OSX is absolutely amazingly international in its construction. The built-in Dictionary is English-only (though it's the OED and includes non-American spellings), but other than the entire OS including all Apple apps run in just about any language you can ask for. Nothing extra to install, even--just tell it what language you want for that acount, and you're done. Adding language translations to applications, if they exist, is also extremely easy. And of course the Unicode foundation makes the whole OS blissfully multi-lingual.
Compared to the equivalent features on the Classic MacOS (where you had to buy a version specific to your country) or even Windows (which has the language pack system, but still has country-specific install discs), this is amazing--the same OSX computer or disc can be used in pretty much any language without doing any more than selecting the correct language at step one of the installer.
Then there's the iTMS, which offers music specific to a couple dozen different countries. Man, I sure wish I could buy some of the stuff on the Japanese iTMS without jumping through hoops, and Apple.com/the Apple Online Store, which is available in a lot of languages/countries.
So the *support* is there, it's just that Apple doesn't always spend the money advertising it or offering local branches in a lot of countries. They're heading in that direction slowly with the non-US Apple Stores, though.
