Non-EFIGA Territories May Get WP7 Limitations

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]Zingam[/nom]That's not the point. The point is that you shouldn't call 3-4 countries - Europe It's not Europe.[/citation]
Anal retentive, but true.
What I meant was the European market.
Also in the absence of a language option for the native country that is not supported you will see English being used as a second language.
Also, I dont mean to be cruel, but sales of smartphones in Brasil dont exactly set the tills ringing. They are not a premium market, have awful network coverage and when they do get a Portugese option it will be to service the relatively small number of European Portugese speakers when network coverage and sales penetration are better.

 

[Vladislaus]

[citation][nom]zaznet[/nom]You are not buying a phone because it doesn't support 300 other languages you are NOT fluent in? Or is your native language one that is missing from WP7?As long as you use one of the supported languages you should have no problem. This phone leaves does leave out most of Asia and the Middle East and seems to be targeted towards Europe and North America. Seems like a pretty poor launch compared to the likes of iPhone and Android.[/citation]
I don't care what other languages WP7 supports. Now if they limit certain features to countries that that don't speak English, French, Italian, German and Spanish then I won't buy it because none of those is my native language.

This is not targeted for Europe. Europe has tons more languages than these and the only one that is more widespread is German. All others are basically spoken just on their country of origin. This leaves out tons of people with limited features.

 

[zaznet]

[citation][nom]Vladislaus[/nom]I won't buy it because none of those is my native language.[/citation]

You didn't make that clear in your original post (in English).

The language limitation issue aside I think this phone is not going to compete well with the others already on the market. I just don't see it as a concern IF your native language is supported.

 

[back_by_demand]

You do realise of course that when the original iPhone launch the user interface and keyboard input were English only. The text output could support characters in other languages, but the actual UI was English and intended for a US only market (initially).

So now that MS have encompassed languages that are native to 1.2 billion and secondary language to a total of 3.1 billion - half the population of the planet - people are pissing and moaning about it?

They will introduce it soon, in the meantime you all look sufficiently proficient in English to have one and then change the UI language with an update which WILL happen.

 

[zaznet]

back by demand,

I'm not saying it's a big issue for the language support. Hope you realize that. This looks like a phone built to mimic the original iPhone but do it a bit better. Add in better hardware and hands down WP7 is going to woop the original iPhone.

The language issue effects those who can't use it in the available languages only, so basing it on the language support alone is a non issue for the majority of the initial target market.

We'll see soon enough if this thing takes off though.

 

[pcwlai]

That's what makes Microsoft a bad software company and Google the second.

Why not have support on all languages and using UNICODE whenever possible?

Microsoft used to push UNICODE so much but failed to use it efficiently? Linux and Java both requires a re-think in this area as well.

Apple is not perceived as a software technology company but they supports UNICODE and most lanaguages even at the launch. Like OS X and iOS. They gives user the chocie to choose what language to use and switch on the fly. That's why you can have multiple region and languages of App Store using on the same iPhone!

That's what consumer friendly is about.

 

[Vladislaus]

[citation][nom]pcwlai[/nom]That's what makes Microsoft a bad software company and Google the second.Why not have support on all languages and using UNICODE whenever possible?Microsoft used to push UNICODE so much but failed to use it efficiently? Linux and Java both requires a re-think in this area as well.Apple is not perceived as a software technology company but they supports UNICODE and most lanaguages even at the launch. Like OS X and iOS. They gives user the chocie to choose what language to use and switch on the fly. That's why you can have multiple region and languages of App Store using on the same iPhone!That's what consumer friendly is about.[/citation]
Sorry but at launch the iPhone only supported English.

 

[Guest]

First... the phone does support unicode, and an app developer can embed a Chinese font and display Chinese right now. Of course, it will be a very limited app because there is no way to enter Chinese yet.

Second... nearly 100% of the people in Denmark, Holland, etc. speak fluent English as a second language. In fact, plenty of people in Denmark speak better english as a second language than many Americans do as an only language. So, I don't think they will be turned off by using a phone where everything is written in English. But.... they will certainly not buy the phone if they cannot enter local characters on the keyboard!!