Some Basic Info on the Japanese Input System for the 3G iPhone

Japanophiles at WWDC probably noticed that Steve Jobs showed a glimpse of the Japanese input system for the new 3G iPhone during his slideshow. A few people asked me how exactly this is going to work, so I did a little research. Here's some basic info:

- You can choose from two kinds of keyboards—the standard QWERTY keyboard and a Japanese cell phone-style keypad.
- You can pick from a muti-tap style kana keyboard or a sliding keyboard. Japanese kana letters are organized in groups of five according to a beginning letter and corresponding vowels (a i u e o), so you can either put in the first letter and then hit the same key b/w 1-5 times to get the right sound, or you can put the first letter in and then tap and slide through to see all five sounds and pick the right one.
- Fully implemented predictive text.
- The ability to write a character on-screen and have it instantly recognized is not Japan-ready...yet.

Pasted above is a rare NDA-breakin' video I found on YouTube of the Japanese input system on the 3G iPhone.

Comments

[totoro]

That looks awesome! the cellphone-style keypad is going to be a nice selling point in japan.

[stuz]

awesome.. was fearing romaji style input only.. what bout the emoticons?

[DanSan]

NDA breakin' video! Yo gotta be kidding. It looks like a bad graphical interface for emu. purposes.