Apple brings new Chinese-specific features to iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion

Apple has said repeatedly that China is its next big market and several new iOS and OS X features suggest Apple plans to increasingly market its products to consumers in the Asian country.

For the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, Apple announced during its WWDC keynote that iOS 6 will support additional Chinese characters, add new Chinese dictionaries and ship with eight new fonts. It'll also add support for Baidu and other Chinese websites including Youku and Tudou. An updated version of Siri will support Mandarin and Cantonese.

One the OS X side of things, Apple made improvements to its input methods for Chinese characters, added a new Chinese dictionary and included eight new Chinese fonts. Chinese services like Baidu will now show up in search and the new system-wide sharing feature. Setting up email with Chinese email services will also be streamlined in Mountain Lion.

You can read more about OS X Mountain Lion and iOS 6 on Apple's website.