iPad's Japanese Kana layout *****.
This is the Japanese "Kana" layout keyboard on iPad.
http://imgc.appbank.net/c/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/iOS5_key-06.jpg
For your information, there are two major way to type Japanese. One is the native "Kana": typing Kana directly. The other is "romaji (roman letters)": typing phonetically using western alphabets. For example, typing 'k', 'a', 'n', 'a' gets you "かな"
The problem is that the Kana layout is not similar to the normal Japanese keyboards. The following is Apple's Japanese keyboard.
http://www.itblog.jp/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/24-7-51-38.jpg
As far as I researched, there was no option for the layout. Why is this? There is no English full-size soft keyboard whose layout is like
a b c d e f g h i j k l
m n o p q r s t u v w
x y z . , ! ? /
It feels exactly like typing with that kind of keyboard. Why did the Apple engineers completely ignore the traditional Kana layout, and use this kind of layout? Is there any Japanese-speaking people here? What do you think?
iPad 2, iOS 5.1.1, 2010 Unibody