But with the iPhone 4 update, Apple continues to push ahead on the global front. Multilingual Mac has documented these improvements, which include fonts that now display some Indic languages finally (though input methods are missing).

Two other features worth notice are:

• Voice control in 24 languages
• The emoji keyboard is now readily accessible. It had been hidden to non-JP users (and it’s quite entertaining to play with)

But one improvement that I just picked up on — and it could have been added prior to iOS 4 — is the localization of “shortcut” top-level domain feature.

I’ll demonstrate below.

First note my keyboard list (if only I were fluent in all of these languages!):

Now I open the Mail app.

Note  below how when I press and hold the “.com” key that I get a nice range of ccTLDs and other top-level domains to select from.

These domains vary based on my activated keyboards.

The more keyboards you activate, the more domains you have to select from.

This is a very nice touch — and I imagine that the Apple devs are right now working on adding IDNs to the mix…

What other international improvements have you noticed with the new iPhone?

It’s very early days, but it’s safe to say that localization vendors are drooling over the possibilities. Although many apps aren’t going to present much in the way of translation revenue, the localization engineering work can be quite substantial.

I’m currently aware of two vendors that have been doing a good job of specializing in this area:

• iPhoneLocalizer.com
• Glyph Language Services

Some app developers I’ve spoken with still question the degree to which they must localize their apps. After all, many report significant sales in markets around the word WITHOUT any localization investment on their part. So they naturally want to know what additional sales they’re going to get for their investment. There are many factors to consider. The ROI of a 99 cent app could be tough to achieve if you’ve got to completely internationalize your app. If your app is already internationalized, the ROI is much easier to achieve.

But China and Japan, as noted in the WSJ article, could be what pushes more and more developers into finally opening their checkbooks.

Here’s what one iPhone developer says:

“We definitely have plans to get all our games localized,” said Andrew Stein, PopCap’s director of mobile business development. “We may see more than half of our sales come from outside of the U.S.” PopCap’s $2.99 “Plants vs. Zombies” tower defense game is currently No. 1 in China, according to App Store rankings.

The article stresses that few apps are currently localized — and I will second that. In fact, the only apps that I’m aware of that support more than 20 languages are Apple’s own default apps. Outside of Apple, PayPal and Google apps appear to be the most global overall.

Here’s a rough tally of what I’ve seen so far:

• PayPal Mobile: 15 languages
• Google Mobile: 15 languages
• Facebook Mobile: 7 languages
• Monopoly: 6 languages

What am I missing here?

After I created the Country Codes of the World map, I began looking at other platforms for the design. And since I own an iPhone, I couldn’t resist creating a custom wallpaper for it.

Here are two ccTLD wallpapers for the iPhone.

If you’d like to use one, simply save the image to your desktop and then import it to your iPhone via iPhoto or your PC images folder.

I’m using the black background currently.

I’m also working on a wallpaper for laptops and desktops. I’ll keep you posted…

Here’s a video of it in action (with some rather odd musical accompaniment):

What’s particularly interesting is that this IME began on the iPhone.

Here is a screen grab of the Chinese IME on my iPhone — and my sad attempt at inputting a character:

It’s interesting to see innovations migrating from phone to PC, certainly a sign of things to come.

And yet I still ended up getting the Kindle.

It’s thinner than I expected and I really get a kick of how it never is “off” in the conventional sense. When you turn the device off you typically get an illustration of a famous autho.

The interface is usable enough, but there is plenty of room for improvement. It was funny to watch my wife try it for the first time. She touched the screen to select an option — a sign of what the iPhone is doing to us all. I felt the urge to touch the screen as well. This makes me realize that Apple is going to do something just like the Kindle eventually (maybe sooner than later). Perhaps power consumption is the big obstacle. But it’s hard to see any hand-held device not going “touch” in the years ahead.

I LOVE the embedded dictionary. If you set the cursor next to a word you don’t understand, the definition appears at the bottom of the screen. I’m going to learn a lot of words that I was simply too lazy to look up these many years.

But the reason for getting the Kindle wasn’t to expand my vocabulary so much as to save shelf space.

Is it bookworthy?

Since downsizing my life back into an apartment, I’ve realized that I can’t keep acquiring books. I love books. I adore books. But I only have so much room for books. And I don’t like to get rid of them once I’ve acquired them.

I’ve found that I’ve resisted buying books simply because I’m running out of shelf space. With the Kindle I can now read those books that may not be “bookworthy” enough to take up precious space on a shelf.

The good news is that I can continue buying those print books that I can’t live without, my wife’s book included — but it’s nice to have a choice.

I also am now making good use of ManyBooks, an excellent repository of copyright-free books in a number of formats. I don’t think I would have ever purchased White Jacket by Herman Melville, but I just downloaded it.

Moby-Dick is clearly bookworthy, but is every Melville book? The Kindle gives me the opportunity to preview a book before buying the “real” print version. Amazon provides a preview option with books as well.

And, yes, I could have done the same exact thing on my PC, downloading PDF versions of all these classic books. And I have already downloaded a number of books in PDF form. But I just don’t read books on a computer, even a laptop computer. There are too many other distractions — email, news, facebook, this blog!

With the Kindle, all you do, for the most part, is read. And I like that.

The decline of “books”; the rise of “content”

As a writer — one who has a novel of his own that he’d like to see in print form one day — the Kindle is a mixed blessing. I agree that this device and the many to follow represent the future of reading for the generation that doesn’t even get a newspaper delivered to the door each morning (I’m still clinging to my daily New York Times).

I don’t believe the Kindle will eliminate books, perhaps a few mainstream bookstores, but not books.

But I do feel books becoming “content” now that they are digitized, along with music and movies and anything else that will fit on a flash disk. In fact, I don’t even view the books on my Kindle as books. Books are those objects on my shelves, that I’ve dragged with me from city to city — some as long as 30 years (I still have a few Hardy Boys books, even a Nancy Drew).

It’s an odd feeling to be caught between two technologies. The print books were once cutting edge — and now we have the digital equivalent.

I guess in the end all that matters is that people keep reading. And if the Kindle achieves that goal, so be it. I certainly find myself reading a bit more since getting it.

I’m not very patient with games. Which is probably why I’m not very good.

My brother has concocted a tile puzzle game for the iPhone, shown below, that I still haven’t figured out — even at the easiest setting.

Maybe you’ll have better luck than I’ve had. The good news is that Chris has made it available for free here.

What I really like about the app is that you can use your own photos. I thought that my pics would be easier to unscramble than the default pics.

They weren’t.

For anyone out there looking for a great developer — proficient on both the iPhone and the PC — you can contact Chris at  chris@chrisyunker.com.

Fortunately, Apple supports a consistent design across its many country Web sites. So when it came time to go live with the translated Web content on 22+ local websites, the process was a relative breeze. Here are four country home pages:

Imagine how difficult this undertaking would be if each country had it own unique Web design requiring the redesigning of visuals for each site.

When it comes to global rollouts, it’s hard to argue with the efficiency of using a global template.

A globally consistent product requires a globally consistent Web site.

Having said this, Apple could still improve a great deal when it comes to Web localization. That is, a number of the local Web sites really aren’t all that local. Like this clip, from the Japan site — an A/V demo of the new MobileMe service — which is available in English only.