IOS 5 --maps now in Chinese

I had the same experience after upgrading with ios5 but in the opposite way. I bought my ipad in shanghai but live in the netherlands. All my maps were chinese/english. After installing ios5 in the netherlands it's only english. I think it's because ios5 renews the location. Perhaps if you install ios5 again and set the location to an other country the problem will be solved.

Same experience plus map directions are not working!

I just tried a DFU restore with a fresh copy of the .ipsw downloaded from Apple (All the time connected to the VPN to the US). As soon as the phone came back on it was already asking me if I wanted Chinese for my language and location before I was asked to allow location services. It must be making the decision based on the carrier, the sim card, or the GPS. This ***** for all of us who bought phones down in Hong Kong to avoid this problem in the first place.

same problem here. unlocked iPhones bought in italy and working well with 4.3.5!!!

Same problem also with an iPhone 4 bought in China last year. So far the maps have been in PinYin and Mandarin - now they are in Mandarin only, the same for my USA iPad 2 since I upgraded - I am really upset as I am using the maps function a lot in Shanghai to get around. The OS language is German for both and used to be before. On my iMac maps still shows PinYin (runs on Lion and has the upgrade to support IOS 5 installed). I hope our comments lead to support from Apple!😠

Same experience plus map directions are not working! iPad 2, china unicom sim and in Guangzhou. Maps are in Chinese and directions not working!!!

Same issue here - Australian, unlocked (legit) iPhone 4. Maps have convereted to Chinese characters.

There are going to be plenty of lost expats trying to get around till this is fixed :-(

If anyone has any suggestions on how to fix this - please post!!

i copy-paste here my reply about the same topic on another page of apple support....

Hi guys.... same thing here... i did try different scenarios...also restoring with VPN, with ot without simcard etc...

the only way i've found to have the maps back in pinyin was to have a foreigner simcard into the iphone and VPN on.... in all the other combinations the result was always the same: maps in chinese. I guess in IOS5 the choice of the maps' language is related with both location and carrier...

i was able to revert back to 4.3.5....

direct download from apple website of the 4.3.5 firmware... then placing the iphone in DFU mode... once in itunes 10.5 option-click restore.. from there you can select the downloaded firmware (4.3.5) and restore to factory settings... next i did restore from a previous backup.... now everything is back as it used to be....

it seems apple officially validates the previous firmware (just the 4.3.5 not the previous ones).. at least for now... so i would suggest to anyone to revert back since apple still leaves us this possibility... otherwise i guess we have to wait for an update on ios 5 IF this is considered a bug....

i copy-paste here my reply about the same topic on another page of apple support....

Hi guys.... same thing here... i did try different scenarios...also restoring with VPN, with ot without simcard etc...

the only way i've found to have the maps back in pinyin was to have a foreigner simcard into the iphone and VPN on.... in all the other combinations the result was always the same: maps in chinese. I guess in IOS5 the choice of the maps' language is related with both location and carrier...

i was able to revert back to 4.3.5....

direct download from apple website of the 4.3.5 firmware... then placing the iphone in DFU mode... once in itunes 10.5 option-click restore.. from there you can select the downloaded firmware (4.3.5) and restore to factory settings... next i did restore from a previous backup.... now everything is back as it used to be....

it seems apple officially validates the previous firmware (just the 4.3.5 not the previous ones).. at least for now... so i would suggest to anyone to revert back since apple still leaves us this possibility... otherwise i guess we have to wait for an update on ios 5 IF this is considered a bug....

The root cause originally was that the map data has been hardcoded to serve from ditu.google.cn instead of the general Google Map server at maps.google.com

The only way to fix this was to jailbreak and modify the file dyld_shared_cache_armv7

Now it is bound to SIM card and maybe someone on the jailbreak community comes up with the fix (however, ipad 2 and iphone 4gs users might be out of luck for a while.

i believe hop1967 you are referring to the chinese version of iphone in this case... and the way to correct it was indeed a jailbreak....

the problem here is that all the iphones, no matter which country they are from, are facing the same issue now...

my fear is that this is not a bug... but instead a design choice.... so apple doesn't need to have a specific harware version for the chinese market.

Nikotine, sorry, you're correct !

I was referring to Chinese version of the iPhone. I have international version myself, unlocked, bought outside China.

Unfortunately this seems to be a design choice 😟

I hope there's a fix for this shortly, either by jailbreak or Apple makes a setting for it (would be nice for people who travel like me who has 4 different sim cards...)

So this might be of some interest to you guys. I have an officially unlocked iPhone 4 from the US now with iOS 5. This is upsetting as Ive gone out of my way to not by an iPhone here in Shanghai because of the maps being in Chinese. We use it for driving all the time.

Anyways on to the interesting part. Yes,VPN with US IP does nothing for China but it does change the maps in other countries to native language/chinese. Now if you view maps through Find my Friends App with VPN on, it's normal! All English/Native languages.

Not sure how much this helps but interesting that these maps are pulling from a different source.

Latest from Apple Guangzhou : Google maps will auto detect / identify the sim card carrier's language

Unicom: SIM card can not be changed to English to correct this problem.

It is a google problem...