[icruise]

This issue is starting to bother me. As you may know, the iPod touch has the ability to select a variety of international keyboards, including Japanese, while the iPhone does not. It gained the ability to enter accented characters by tapping and holding on certain keys (vowels) but that's it. I had heard some people say that they were able to get the Japanese entry method to come up by going to a Japanese web site that had a text entry box (although it only works for that particular page, so it's not very useful, but it proves that the capability is there). I hadn't been able to get this to work myself, but I decided to take the time this afternoon and visit a bunch of Japanese sites to see if one of them would allow me to enter Japanese. After maybe a dozen tries, I finally got this page to show the keyboard (in the large text box at the bottom). However, after a minute or so of playing around with it, Safari crashed and when I went back to the same page, I couldn't get the Japanese keyboard to show up no matter what I did! It's very strange. Does anyone know under what conditions the keyboard appears? I had thought that it would be dependent on the text coding used on the page, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Or at least that's not the whole story.

I really wish Apple would just add the ability to use international keyboards on the iPhone. It may only be on sale in primarily English speaking countries, but that doesn't mean that only monolingual people will be using it. Being able to enter Japanese on the iPhone would make my life a lot easier.

[mduell]

What did you do on that page to get the Japanese keyboard?

I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to tie each iPhone to only one keyboard so they could segment the market for price discrimination.

[icruise]

I just tapped inside it. But now I can't get it to work at all.

[henjin]

Originally Posted by icruise 

This issue is starting to bother me. As you may know, the iPod touch has the ability to select a variety of international keyboards, including Japanese, while the iPhone does not. It gained the ability to enter accented characters by tapping and holding on certain keys (vowels) but that's it. I had heard some people say that they were able to get the Japanese entry method to come up by going to a Japanese web site that had a text entry box (although it only works for that particular page, so it's not very useful, but it proves that the capability is there). I hadn't been able to get this to work myself, but I decided to take the time this afternoon and visit a bunch of Japanese sites to see if one of them would allow me to enter Japanese. After maybe a dozen tries, I finally got this page to show the keyboard (in the large text box at the bottom). However, after a minute or so of playing around with it, Safari crashed and when I went back to the same page, I couldn't get the Japanese keyboard to show up no matter what I did! It's very strange. Does anyone know under what conditions the keyboard appears? I had thought that it would be dependent on the text coding used on the page, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Or at least that's not the whole story.

I really wish Apple would just add the ability to use international keyboards on the iPhone. It may only be on sale in primarily English speaking countries, but that doesn't mean that only monolingual people will be using it. Being able to enter Japanese on the iPhone would make my life a lot easier.

I no longer own an iPhone but I did discover a 100% full proof way to get the Japanese keyboard to work within Safari only.
open safari,
go to alc.co.jp
type in the text box for translation, test
tap go
wait till the results FULLY load.
Then tap select the text box again
Up pops the Asian keyboard, then go to say gmail or .Mac online or one of the online office web apps and you can still type in Japanese.
If you hit the home button you'll lose the keyboard. So save the "test" result as a bookmark, name it Japanese and keep it at the top of your Safari bookmarks.

I've posted all over about this and yet for some reason no one notices. I think there are only a few people like us who need Japanese.
Windows mobile 2003/5/6/CE all support a fully activated Asian, Arabic and European language keyboard. Only Apple would install it but not activate it. I know why. When they bring out the 3G model they'll want to add value to the old ones. Look it can do Japanese, Chinese....

I returned my iPhone because in a 5 band area it could not receive calls on a regular basis and voice mail if it came, if it ever came, would come a day late. I lost work because of it. So I am waiting for the next generation of Smart phones. I’ll never buy into a closed system again.

But hey I helped y'all out right?

[icruise]

Thanks, that page does seem to do the trick. Theoretically, I should be able to switch to .Mac and send mail in Japanese, but Safari kept quitting on me. I don't know if it's because of the .Mac web interface or because of the Japanese keyboard. Does the touch have these problems?

I was finally able to send a test message in Japanese, but I forgot that I was using the English web interface, and it came out as all question marks on the receiving end. I haven't gotten around to testing it on the Japanese .Mac page, but I imagine it will work. It's a clumsy workaround at best, but it might help me out if I need to email a client in Japanese and don't have access to a computer.