arabic language supporting phones

BashLogic

hello

do you know whether there are arabic language phones out there? if there are would you use them?

battikh

don't most of the phones support arabic? most brands (at least the main ones, nokia, sony ericsson, motorolla, blackberry, ...) sold in the middle east (ya3neh lebanon too), have arabic.

BashLogic

battikh wrotedon't most of the phones support arabic? most brands (at least the main ones, nokia, sony ericsson, motorolla, blackberry, ...) sold in the middle east (ya3neh lebanon too), have arabic.

how have people reacted to the arabic versions? have they used them or do they preffer the status quo english version?
what brands best support arabic (best translation, correct phrasing, etc)

samer

I usually go for Sony Ericsson mobiles. The phones sold here have 3 or 4 arabic letters on every number so you can normally multi-tap your message as you would do in English. I send and receive messages without any problems.

PS: it has been reported that the iPhone sometimes crashes (and never reads) arabic messages, so watch out for that.
PPS: Yes, if it jail-broken you may use a special app to read arabic messages :)

battikh

i think he meant having the menus and everything in arabic, not just language support for typing.
for the usage of arabic and lebanese people's reaction, i use french and people laugh at me because of that, so no need to imagine the reaction of lebanese if someone uses arabic :P
usually the people that i see using fully arabic phones are gulf people (emiratis, saudis, ...) and syrians (as they are probably more used to arabic as their whole educational system is in arabic).

BashLogic

battikh wrotei think he meant having the menus and everything in arabic, not just language support for typing.
for the usage of arabic and lebanese people's reaction, i use french and people laugh at me because of that, so no need to imagine the reaction of lebanese if someone uses arabic :P
usually the people that i see using fully arabic phones are gulf people (emiratis, saudis, ...) and syrians (as they are probably more used to arabic as their whole educational system is in arabic).

yep that is a bit of what i was chasing after, lebanese are an exception with their "western-love" mentality, other than that i was wondering to what extend mobile manufacturers have been localizing the mobile phones and what are the reaction, tendency and wishes of the users.

this came to my mind when about 6 years ago i was in australia and got a nokia phone that had asian localization, was weird and fun to carry arround when going out, i managed using it by memorizing the menu order, otherwize no way would i have managed. arabic is another story, one thing that annoyed me with the asian phone was that there were acronyms and shortened words as comparable to english version, so it kinda messed up the menus, i was wondering if the same applies for arabic as well. btw what dialect do they use? classic arabic, modern arabic, gulf? egyptian?

samer

btw what dialect do they use? classic arabic, modern arabic, gulf? egyptian?

In my SE it's classic Arabic. Even after I flashed my phone I still had support for English, Français, Russian, Arabic and Persian

mir

it is not foreigner style of life or anything

think of it this way :
why would i want to use arabic in my cell phone... why do you want to implement arabic in the cell phones?
i don't think the goal is the patriotism
i guess it is to choose a language close to the user, that is used in his daily life in order to make it easy for the ppl to navigate and use the thing

oh.. well... arabic vocab in technology really sucks.. and the fact that in your daily life what you read on technology is 99% in english.. my technology language became english.. my social language is arabic
(i think of it this way)
so it is easier for me to use english on my cell phone... cuz my vocab is built in english

However, i guess good interface design.. should focus on using images, logo and such to represent messages, call... if you know what i mean
cuz ppl don't actually read

and there is another thing.. the input devices are not optimzed for arabic
for example to write some letters like "la" u have to press like 2 - 3 keyboard presses.. somehow it is slower

i used arabic once in my cell phone out of curiosity
i couldn't wait to get back to english
that is as far as my arabic experience would go

samer

i don't think the goal is the patriotism

Did you know that in Lebanon, French is an official language too?

battikh

yeah, it's not a question of patriotism, it's just a question of education. we learned everything in french/english, while in syria for example, they learn everything in arabic. for us, when we hear 7asoub, qers madghout, alyaf basariya, ... we just laugh and find it weird, for them, it's the words they use at university, at work, in their daily life,...
the problem is that many lebanese usually mock people who use anything other than english on their phones. that's just absurd. even french is not much accepted by many lebanese. speaking english is cool, speaking french is na3nou3. once their were actually 2 people "mocking" me in english that i was frenchie. enno wtf, they were talking in english, mocking me that i talk in french, do they even have any bit of logic?

mir

well.. very few things make sense in here !
i know that speaking french is the classy thing no ? :P

personally i don't mock the ppl using whatsoever on their phones.. cuz i know that is the thing they know best

i would avoid as much as possible putting effort and working in translating softwares... i won't do it unless i am really the last person on earth being able to do so