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Apple to include Chinese handwriting recognition in iPhone 2.0

by Cory Bohon May 5th 2008 at 5:30PM

One of our tipsters, Kenneth, pointed us to a Chinese web page (Google translation) showing what appears to be an iPhone running some sort of handwriting recognition geared especially for Chinese characters. According to the post, this is how Apple will integrate Chinese (Simplified and Traditional) input into the iPhone. As you write the character, you are presented with a list of the possible characters on the right side of the input pane.

According to MacRumors, Apple recently started hiring "Handwriting Recognition Engineers," could this mean the iPhone is coming to China soon? Only time will tell, but this should definitely give people something to hope for.


Thanks, Kenneth.

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One of our tipsters, Kenneth, pointed us to a Chinese web page (Google translation) showing what appears to be an iPhone running some sort...
 

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George

For the jailbroke iPhone, HWPen 1.0.1 Beta does hand writing input pretty well. Supports both traditional and simplified Chinese. You can find it at the iphonecake.com/repo.xml via the good old installer.

May 05 2008 at 9:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
StevenBallmer

Forget all of this cr@pola! The ZunePhone is coming soon!

http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

May 05 2008 at 8:54 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to StevenBallmer's comment
south

Dammit, FSB... is your relentless spamming of Wired's comments section not enough for you anymore?

May 06 2008 at 6:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
doobi18

uh, sorry guys, but that is probably something called "HWpen", avaliable off Installer.app through the MMi source.

It does Chinese & Engrish, but it's actually really arduous to use and gets in the way when your trying to type normally, so I got rid of it.

Hope that helps,

doobi

May 05 2008 at 8:24 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jason Hung

These shots look like fakes. There are several problems with it: (a) Apple already has an IME for Japanese that uses character selection; I am sure they wouldn't detract from the original interface that much; (b) for the Simplified Chinese portion 中文（簡體）is not actually in simplified Chinese （简体）; (c) Apple wouldn't put that kind of stuff in a beta release; (d) the interface is inconsistent.

May 05 2008 at 6:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Jason Hung's comment
Kai

@ Jason

Which Japanese IME are you talking about? I have not been able to find it >< The method for Japanese input in the screen is exactly what i have been asking for. It is identical to how the Japanese phones input Japanese and it is a very fast method. The method of typing with a qwerty keyboard and have it convert to japanese, like pinyin system for chinese, is simply not as fast.

Whether these screenshots are real or not i hope that is how Japanese input works because im desperately waiting for the iPhone to be released in Japan and hoping with a 3G model it will get there.

May 05 2008 at 7:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jose

The Chinese handwriting recognition only works for Chinese Traditional of the ROC (commonly known as Taiwan). Chinese Simplefied of the Communist China still uses keyboard input. ;)

May 05 2008 at 6:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Nr9

that is a taiwanese webpage

May 05 2008 at 5:38 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
9 replies to Nr9's comment
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