Hebrew language support for the iPad

August 10, 2010 6:56 AM

When will the iPad fully support Hebrew?

I've been playing around with an iPad, and the only thing so far I've seen that I don't like about it is that it doesn't yet support Hebrew (no built-in Hebrew keyboard layout). This surprised me since the iPhone supports it very nicely.

In doing some searching, I came up with this article, which says that the iPad will be officially released in Israel "in a few weeks" with "complete Hebrew language compatibility."

Does that mean there will be a generally available (I'm in the U.S.) update that will enable Hebrew language support on all iPads?

Also, does anyone have more specific information on when that release is scheduled?

posted by greenmagnet to technology (2 answers total)

It sounds like iOS 4.1 will include Hebrew language support for iPad when it is released at the end of the summer. The 3.2.1 software currently released for iPad is a dead-end fork of the iOS codebase produced by a small team at Apple in secrecy during the device's development. 4.1, when released, will re-unify the iPhone and iPad platforms from a software standpoint, so it's nearly certain that the iPad will get features like Hebrew language support that are currently missing from the 3.2 fork of the OS, but present in 3.1 for the iPhone.
posted by killdevil at 7:18 AM on August 10, 2010

Nitpick: "the iPad’s OS 3.2 was not... developed by a team working in secret, apart from the main iPhone OS 4 team. The iPad’s OS 3.2 is indeed a separate fork — 3.2 was never meant for use on iPhones or iPod Touches, and 4.0 will not be available on the iPad. But the team wasn’t separate — those working on 4.0 knew what was going on with the iPad and those working on the iPad knew what was going on with 4.0."
posted by Zozo at 2:10 PM on August 10, 2010