Is iPod multi-lingual (English and Chinese simultaneously)?

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Level 1

75 points

Is iPod multi-lingual (English and Chinese simultaneously)?

On my iCal and Addressbook on my Mac I have some entries in Chinese, while the rest is either in Finnish or English. Will the iPod (especially Nano) be able to show the entries correctly; that is, even if the language is set to English (or Finnish if possible) will the entries in Chinese be shown correctly?

Second question: Do the attached notes made in iCal (calendar and tasks) show in the iPod, or does the iPod only show the topic and time?

Powerbook 12 G4 1,5 GHz, Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Posted on Apr 8, 2006 8:25 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,922 points

Apr 9, 2006 6:29 AM in response to Jyrki Kallio

Will the iPod (especially Nano)
be able to show the entries correctly; that is, even
if the language is set to English (or Finnish if
possible) will the entries in Chinese be shown
correctly?

Yes. The iPod will show songs in their correct language as long as the ID3 tags are encoded correctly. The iPod specs indicate that Finnish is supported:

http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html

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Answer 2

Jyrki Kallio Author

Level 1

75 points

Apr 9, 2006 5:32 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Yes. The iPod will show songs in their correct
language as long as the ID3 tags are encoded
correctly.

Thanks (again) Tom! Would you know if the same is true with the calendar and addressbook?

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Answer 3

Jyrki Kallio Author

Level 1

75 points

Apr 9, 2006 6:28 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

I found an article from Apple Support ( http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61894) stating:

"By default all note files are considered to be encoded in Latin1, unless the iPod language preference is set to Japanese, Korean, or traditional or simplified Chinese, in which case all note files are assumed to be in that encoding.
Note: You can tag a note file with a different encoding by including the following line: <?xml encoding="MacJapanese"?>
iPod handles these encodings: Latin1, MacRoman, MacJapanese, Korean, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, UTF8 Unicode and UTF16 Unicode.
The only way to display multiple encodings in the same note is to use Unicode."

So that means, if I interpret it correctly, that by adding a tag saying the text (including both Chinese and English) is in Unicode, iPod will display it correctly?

(And aren't text created with Macs' inbuilt TeXt editor automatically in Unicode format?)

How about the Calender and Address Book; if they contain both Chinese and English, will they be displayed correctly on iPod (are those applications on iPod automatically Unicode-savvy?)?

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