setting the thousands separator

Question

setting the thousands separator

I just got an iPhone.
How do I get the following settings:
Date&Time: 24 hour time, time zone: Zurich
International: Language: English UK
Region format...: here I want English for the names of the days and months, but I want an apostrophe (') not a comma (,) for the thousands separator in numbers (calculator etc.). I.e. I want the Swiss format.

G5, Mac OS X (10.4.11), plus other Macs.

Posted on Aug 19, 2009 2:45 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 19, 2009 6:23 PM in response to RobertCailliau

RobertCailliau wrote:
I just got an iPhone.
How do I get the following settings:
Date&Time: 24 hour time, time zone: Zurich

Settings -> General -> Date & Time -> 24-Hour Time -> ON
The time zone is always set for your current location. You can turn on time zone support for Calendars and set Zurich for the time zone. (Settings -> General -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Time Zone Support). Then, all your calendar events will show your events in Zurich time. If time zone support is OFF, your events will be shown in the time zone for your current location.

International: Language: English UK

Settings -> General - International -> Language -> English
Settings -> General - International -> Voice Control -> English (United Kingdom)
Settings -> General - International -> Keyboard -> English (UK)
If you text or email in several languages, you can turn on more than one international keyboard. When your have 2 or more, you can tap the globe symbol left of the spacebar to switch between them. When you switch the spacebar will momentarily indicate the current keyboard. If the keyboard selected has dictionary support, you will load the dictionary corresponding to the keyboard when you switch. Thus, if you use a Spanish keyboard, the corrections dictionary will also use Spanish.

Region format...: here I want English for the names of the days and months, but I want an apostrophe (') not a comma (,) for the thousands separator in numbers (calculator etc.). I.e. I want the Swiss format.

Settings -> General - International -> Region Format -> ?
Here you have to make a choice. The region format selection controls the format of dates, time and telephone numbers. I suggest you take the region that formats your phone numbers the way you use them, and live with the other two formats. I don't know any way to have part UK and part Swiss region format.

Here is a good reference for you: How to do everything on the iPhone: http://www.apple.com/iphone/how-to/#basics.introduction

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Answer 2

Aug 19, 2009 11:21 PM in response to Jim VanLeeuwen

Thanks very much Jim,

First let me apologise for bad wording: I knew the answer to the first two, I should have asked: "how do I obtain the following combination ..."

You confirm what I suspected: the same defect as present in Tiger and Leopard is even worse on the iPhone. It is impossible to change some international settings independently of others. Apart from the UK, almost everyone around here uses a comma for decimals separation, not thousands. The apostrophe is the unambiguous separator for thousands. Furthermore, I live in France, very close to the border of Switzerland (Geneva), I want my software and web site pages in English, use metric, euros, 24h clock, ISO dates (YYYY-MM-DD), and numbers like 123'456.78. Tiger and Leopard, for reasons to be guessed at, removed the customise button from the number format so that this combination is impossible to get via the preferences panel. I have found a solution by typing command-line stuff, but now the iPhone has introduced the irritation again.

I also note that a large number of iPhone applications simply don't read the preference settings and just use whatever the developer was brought up with. Not very good. It should be a quality control requirement.

Anyway, thanks for your effort. I'll pursue the question a little and post here if I find a solution.

Robert.

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