This is good stuff, and important news for the CJK markets. Vertical text on a Mac, right out of the box, is a big plus. And maybe third-party apps will be able to draw on the feature easily too; that'd be fantastic for Mac software in CJK markets.
@wizard69: "This should make TextEdit more than suitable for many users needs. That means no need to install pages. "
If you're suggesting that Pages does vertical text; that's not right; it unfortunately doesn't. But I can't help but think that this same feature will leap from TextEdit to Pages. It's a sorely missing feature in a top-end word processor like Pages.
I had to buy the latest MS Word for Mac (Japanese version) simply for that one feature: vertical text. Word handles that feature, but otherwise is just execrable software. I hope I'll soon have no need at all for Word!
Anyway, putting text direction aside, I agree entirely that it'd be great to see Numbers become a more general calculation tool.
@JDW: "True, I've only lived in Japan a mere 16 years, but to me, pairing an English & Japanese sentence together even though they each differ in meaning is truly "okashii.""
I've lived in Japan a mere 25 years, and I don't know what you mean by the above.
Anyway, I agree heartily that work a better Kotoeri, or a better replacement, would be great. Especially the ability to draw characters! iOS already offers this for Chinese input; why not OS X too, and for Japanese as well?
Actually, the text used in this article (clearly written by a native English speaker who doesn't fully know Japanese) currently says "Kore ga Nihon desu" (Romaji transliteration). The proper translation of that into English is, "This is Japan" because "日本" is "Japan." If you native English speakers doubt me, examine it yourself here:
..... But if Apple really wants to do Japanese right, they'll buy out JustSystems and replace Kotoeri with ATOK. (ATOK allows Kanji entry by sketching characters, even if your stroke order is not correct.)
The example actually says "This is a hotizontal text layout"
Also, I think you will find that Apple's OS X text input allows Japanese SOD.
English and European language speakers don't appreciate this, but one factor in Apple's success in selling computers and phones in Asia is that OS X does two-byte languages. Linux and Android does not.
By that I mean, sure, you can get Mac, Windows and Linux PC's to work in, say, Chinese, or accept input in Chinese, you can get a phone or a tablet, aka a photoframe, to run an English or Chinese version of Linux. What you cannot do, except in OS X, is switch on the fly between the various language inputs.
This is the reason why every attempt to bring a US-developed phone to Japan before the iPhone failed, and every attempt to bring an Android phone to Japan since then has sucked.
Appleinsider may have missed some details of the Japanese text input, but the fact that they could even do it is testimony to the core strength of Apple's OS X in language support.
Oh, Thank you Apple! At last we can do a bit of simple highlighting without having to navigate the menu and raise the Show Colors palette. For the kind of simplistic note-taking this app is used for a bit of colour/bold/underline goes a long way.
Slightly negatively - the Japanese characters were correctly down the page, but they would normally put the roman text down the page with the characters the right way up. Oops!
The example actually says "This is a hotizontal text layout"
Forgive me if I have misread your statement, but in terms of natural reading your use of the word "actually" implies that my prior post said otherwise. Not so. I was merely saying that because the English text used in the example given in this article speaks of "horizontal text layout" and "vertical text layout," I feel that the Japanese used side-by-side with that same English text should be a translation of that same English. More specifically, the Japanese would have been more logical (and therefore "better" in my mind) had it been written in each of the two article examples thusly:
これは横書きレイアウトです。
(Transliteration: Kore ha yokogaki reiauto desu.)
(Translation: This is horizontal text layout.)
これは縦書きレイアウトです。
(Transliteration: Kore ha tategaki reiauto desu.)
(Translation: This is vertical text layout.)
NOTE: The use of the word レイアウト ("layout" in English) is not so necessary in the Japanese but I have included it to make the translation as close as possible to the original English.
Now with that said, and as I stated in a prior post here, whoever wrote that Japanese was a native English speaker not well versed in Japanese. As such, it makes logical sense that their Japanese was not perfect, so I am not overly condemning it. Even so, just as your typical native English speaker tends to make these obvious mistakes with Japanese, so does Apple insofar Apple has never given as much emphasis on the language needs of Japan as it should. Japanese text entry even with Kotoeri is still harder than English text entry. And while that remains true even with the superior ATOK Input Method, ATOK makes it easier and is often more accurate than Kotoeri when switching the Hiragana you just typed into Kanji.
I still think Apple should use some of those billions in liquid assets to buy out this small company (Just Systems) and built ATOK into OS X as a standard feature. It's not like Japan is an insignificant country economically-speaking either, amounting to 6% of Apple's sales in 2010. It would be worth the time and money invested.
In any event I can understand Apples need to have some compatibility with other spreadsheets in Numbers. The problem is Numbers and other spreadsheets are used outside of the financial and business management industries where upon features such as graphing fall flat on their faces. So I'm really hoping Apple sees value in making Numbers a more general purpose calculation and graphing tool.
Whatever happened to the Wingz spreadsheet product from years ago? As I recall, that one was positioned as a very broad product, almost a development environment. This may be another case where the Microsoft product(s) have pretty well defined what most folks expect from an application.
- Not that it is realistic, but does seem to make it harder for the independent developers to get their application noticed.
One thing I do wish for is a better cross-platform text solution.
That is, the current TextEdit saves in a default rtf format which my Windows machine does not always interpret the same as the Mac. Of course, it opens MS Word on Windows, but not always displayed similarly.
Currently I usually default TextEdit back to plain text. Or use TextWrangler.
Since my information notes that I share between Windows and Macs are basically plain text. And when I need formatting in the notes, I usually end up just making the notes in a Word document. Guess that's what I get for finding myself splitting my time between Windows and Macs.
Anyone have a favorite methodology for primarily text-based files shared between Macs and PCs?
Forgive me if I have misread your statement, but in terms of natural reading your use of the word "actually" implies that my prior post said otherwise......
JDW,
Yes, I do forgive you and yes, you did misread my statement.
The very simple point was that the second screenshot in the original article had an English-language spelling mistake. The word "horizontal" was written with a t in place of the r as "hotizontal". That was all.
So I do agree that the rest of what you wrote may have been better Japanese than AI presented. I am not a user of ATOK, so I have no idea why it would help the Mac OS X Japanese text input. It seems to me that Apple is doing a pretty good job of that on its own.
I do know this: last year, Steve Jobs sent me an email message that said "I love Japan".
I am not a user of ATOK, so I have no idea why it would help the Mac OS X Japanese text input. It seems to me that Apple is doing a pretty good job of that on its own.
But you really do need to be a user of ATOK to more fully understand why Apple is not doing "the best job possible" on its own. Any native Japanese who has used the built-in Japanese input methods of OS X or Windows will be able to tell you the failings and limitations of those input methods (yes, I work with native Japanese, and they tell me, and I experience the failings in my own work too), and a good number of those failings are addressed in ATOK. But such makes logical since because Just Systems is not concentrating their software development efforts on an entire OS like Apple or Microsoft. They are able to concentrate more effort on making the best Japanese Input Method possible, which is why ATOK is a noticeable improvement over the standard Japanese input methods.
All this talk about ATOK may seem irrelevant to native English speakers, and it is for those who live outside Japan and who never use non-English languages. But for those of us who must use Japanese even a little, ATOK offers a lot. And as I said before, the ability to "sketch" in Kanji that you cannot read (but want to read) is a real boon indeed. The only downside is that ATOK is still, after all these years, largely unknown -- especially outside Japan. Most people just trudge along with their inferior Japanese input methods and complain about why things should be better, not knowing there is something better out there. That's why I think Apple can really bring something great to the Japanese market if it could vastly improve Kotoeri by replacing it with ATOK.
Kotoeri has improved through the years, and I am not calling Kotoeri "garbage" or anything of the sort. I am simply saying it could become so much better. And truly, for Japanese people and those who use Japanese, an Input Method is something you use on your computer whenever you use that computer. You get more use out of it than a web browser, word processor or any other individual app simply because you input text everywhere throughout the OS and in every app.
As to Steve Job's sentiments about Japan, I have little doubt his love stems mostly from how Japan benefits Apple's bottom line, including the fact Japan amounts to 6% of Apple's sales and the fact Apple sources key components from Japan and has been trying to source more over the past year. But Steve is also well aware that Japan is a tough market with a very demanding consumer base. And any American company who is truly committed to making the best products possible is obligated to test their products in Japanese waters and then improve those products to the satisfaction of the Japanese. So Steve could also love Japan because Japan has indirectly helped Steve make his products better. Such not only makes better products "for Japan," but better products in overall -- hence my desire to see a better input method in OS X (which again only becomes abundantly clear if you are native Japanese or have lived in Japan many years and use the language here). If the verbal love Job's has expressed for Japan is real, he'll put those words into action, with continued improvements specific to helping the Japanese, above and beyond mere "vertical text in TextEdit."
As to AppleInsider "spelling errors," I've commented on those in other articles from time to time. My feeling is, if there were no spelling or grammar checkers, or if the authors were all amateur writers, such would be excusable. But neither is the case. Moreover, this isn't just any article either. It is classified as a "FEATURE" story. As such my expectations as a reader are higher. One can only hope AppleInsider takes these "spelling mistake" comments to heart in their future articles. But if past comments about bad spelling are any indication, they won't do that for us. I can therefore only express "continued disappointment" at the sheer apathy toward proper writing in English. I can appreciate the desire to kick out articles quickly, but those articles should also be quickly-yet-carefully proofed before published.
Disclaimer: I do not work for Just Systems (creators of ATOK), nor have I ever worked for them, nor do I know anyone who does work for them, nor do I get any direct benefit by speaking positively about ATOK. The content (and bad Japanese) of this particular AppleInsider article coupled with my having lived in Japan over 16 years simply provoked me to write about "Japanese text input improvements." I have no hidden agenda here.
As to AppleInsider "spelling errors," I've commented on those in other articles from time to time. My feeling is, if there were no spelling or grammar checkers, or if the authors were all amateur writers, such would be excusable. But neither is the case. Moreover, this isn't just any article either. It is classified as a "FEATURE" story. As such my expectations as a reader are higher. One can only hope AppleInsider takes these "spelling mistake" comments to heart in their future articles. But if past comments about bad spelling are any indication, they won't do that for us. I can therefore only express "continued disappointment" at the sheer apathy toward proper writing in English. I can appreciate the desire to kick out articles quickly, but those articles should also be quickly-yet-carefully proofed before published.
...
I agree with your thoughts on how the quality of web-published articles could and should be better.
I am often dismayed by the number and kind of errors that I see in web articles published by many news reporting sites -- not just the occasional error of AppleInsider, but also errors published by the more 'mainstream' technical journals and outlets.
It is a sad commentary on how the English usage is devolving.
Comments
@wizard69: "This should make TextEdit more than suitable for many users needs. That means no need to install pages. "
If you're suggesting that Pages does vertical text; that's not right; it unfortunately doesn't. But I can't help but think that this same feature will leap from TextEdit to Pages. It's a sorely missing feature in a top-end word processor like Pages.
I had to buy the latest MS Word for Mac (Japanese version) simply for that one feature: vertical text. Word handles that feature, but otherwise is just execrable software. I hope I'll soon have no need at all for Word!
Anyway, putting text direction aside, I agree entirely that it'd be great to see Numbers become a more general calculation tool.
@JDW: "True, I've only lived in Japan a mere 16 years, but to me, pairing an English & Japanese sentence together even though they each differ in meaning is truly "okashii.""
I've lived in Japan a mere 25 years, and I don't know what you mean by the above.
Anyway, I agree heartily that work a better Kotoeri, or a better replacement, would be great. Especially the ability to draw characters! iOS already offers this for Chinese input; why not OS X too, and for Japanese as well?
I agree heartily that work a better Kotoeri, or a better replacement, would be great. Especially the ability to draw characters!
ATOK has had offered the ability to sketch Kanji under OS X for many years (手書き文字入力):
http://www.mactechlab.jp/products-report/3646.html
And it's not just Kanji recognition either on the sketch pad:
http://blog.shira-dragon.com/?eid=627767
Here's some additional information in English about ATOK's input method:
http://www.atok.com/biz/embedded_atok_en.html
Actually, the text used in this article (clearly written by a native English speaker who doesn't fully know Japanese) currently says "Kore ga Nihon desu" (Romaji transliteration). The proper translation of that into English is, "This is Japan" because "日本" is "Japan." If you native English speakers doubt me, examine it yourself here:
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/c...wwwjdic.cgi?1C
..... But if Apple really wants to do Japanese right, they'll buy out JustSystems and replace Kotoeri with ATOK. (ATOK allows Kanji entry by sketching characters, even if your stroke order is not correct.)
http://www.atok.com/about/
The example actually says "This is a hotizontal text layout"
Also, I think you will find that Apple's OS X text input allows Japanese SOD.
English and European language speakers don't appreciate this, but one factor in Apple's success in selling computers and phones in Asia is that OS X does two-byte languages. Linux and Android does not.
By that I mean, sure, you can get Mac, Windows and Linux PC's to work in, say, Chinese, or accept input in Chinese, you can get a phone or a tablet, aka a photoframe, to run an English or Chinese version of Linux. What you cannot do, except in OS X, is switch on the fly between the various language inputs.
This is the reason why every attempt to bring a US-developed phone to Japan before the iPhone failed, and every attempt to bring an Android phone to Japan since then has sucked.
Appleinsider may have missed some details of the Japanese text input, but the fact that they could even do it is testimony to the core strength of Apple's OS X in language support.
Mac OS X's bare bones text editor
Wow! I had to take a second look at that. What? Apple buys BBEdit. (Bare Bones without initial caps)
Which actually is not a half bad idea.
Slightly negatively - the Japanese characters were correctly down the page, but they would normally put the roman text down the page with the characters the right way up. Oops!
this is hardly news...
I sort of agree and in a weird way disagree.
What's news is that this is one of the most useful practical features of an entire OS release !
I think I could come up with a hundred such improvements in my sleep.
The example actually says "This is a hotizontal text layout"
Forgive me if I have misread your statement, but in terms of natural reading your use of the word "actually" implies that my prior post said otherwise. Not so. I was merely saying that because the English text used in the example given in this article speaks of "horizontal text layout" and "vertical text layout," I feel that the Japanese used side-by-side with that same English text should be a translation of that same English. More specifically, the Japanese would have been more logical (and therefore "better" in my mind) had it been written in each of the two article examples thusly:
これは横書きレイアウトです。
(Transliteration: Kore ha yokogaki reiauto desu.)
(Translation: This is horizontal text layout.)
これは縦書きレイアウトです。
(Transliteration: Kore ha tategaki reiauto desu.)
(Translation: This is vertical text layout.)
NOTE: The use of the word レイアウト ("layout" in English) is not so necessary in the Japanese but I have included it to make the translation as close as possible to the original English.
And for those who wish to confirm the Japanese:
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/c...wwwjdic.cgi?9T
Now with that said, and as I stated in a prior post here, whoever wrote that Japanese was a native English speaker not well versed in Japanese. As such, it makes logical sense that their Japanese was not perfect, so I am not overly condemning it. Even so, just as your typical native English speaker tends to make these obvious mistakes with Japanese, so does Apple insofar Apple has never given as much emphasis on the language needs of Japan as it should. Japanese text entry even with Kotoeri is still harder than English text entry. And while that remains true even with the superior ATOK Input Method, ATOK makes it easier and is often more accurate than Kotoeri when switching the Hiragana you just typed into Kanji.
I still think Apple should use some of those billions in liquid assets to buy out this small company (Just Systems) and built ATOK into OS X as a standard feature. It's not like Japan is an insignificant country economically-speaking either, amounting to 6% of Apple's sales in 2010. It would be worth the time and money invested.
I am pre-ordering for sure.
funny!
... MacPlot.
In any event I can understand Apples need to have some compatibility with other spreadsheets in Numbers. The problem is Numbers and other spreadsheets are used outside of the financial and business management industries where upon features such as graphing fall flat on their faces. So I'm really hoping Apple sees value in making Numbers a more general purpose calculation and graphing tool.
Whatever happened to the Wingz spreadsheet product from years ago? As I recall, that one was positioned as a very broad product, almost a development environment. This may be another case where the Microsoft product(s) have pretty well defined what most folks expect from an application.
- Not that it is realistic, but does seem to make it harder for the independent developers to get their application noticed.
That is, the current TextEdit saves in a default rtf format which my Windows machine does not always interpret the same as the Mac. Of course, it opens MS Word on Windows, but not always displayed similarly.
Currently I usually default TextEdit back to plain text. Or use TextWrangler.
Since my information notes that I share between Windows and Macs are basically plain text. And when I need formatting in the notes, I usually end up just making the notes in a Word document. Guess that's what I get for finding myself splitting my time between Windows and Macs.
Anyone have a favorite methodology for primarily text-based files shared between Macs and PCs?
Forgive me if I have misread your statement, but in terms of natural reading your use of the word "actually" implies that my prior post said otherwise......
JDW,
Yes, I do forgive you and yes, you did misread my statement.
The very simple point was that the second screenshot in the original article had an English-language spelling mistake. The word "horizontal" was written with a t in place of the r as "hotizontal". That was all.
So I do agree that the rest of what you wrote may have been better Japanese than AI presented. I am not a user of ATOK, so I have no idea why it would help the Mac OS X Japanese text input. It seems to me that Apple is doing a pretty good job of that on its own.
I do know this: last year, Steve Jobs sent me an email message that said "I love Japan".
I am not a user of ATOK, so I have no idea why it would help the Mac OS X Japanese text input. It seems to me that Apple is doing a pretty good job of that on its own.
But you really do need to be a user of ATOK to more fully understand why Apple is not doing "the best job possible" on its own. Any native Japanese who has used the built-in Japanese input methods of OS X or Windows will be able to tell you the failings and limitations of those input methods (yes, I work with native Japanese, and they tell me, and I experience the failings in my own work too), and a good number of those failings are addressed in ATOK. But such makes logical since because Just Systems is not concentrating their software development efforts on an entire OS like Apple or Microsoft. They are able to concentrate more effort on making the best Japanese Input Method possible, which is why ATOK is a noticeable improvement over the standard Japanese input methods.
All this talk about ATOK may seem irrelevant to native English speakers, and it is for those who live outside Japan and who never use non-English languages. But for those of us who must use Japanese even a little, ATOK offers a lot. And as I said before, the ability to "sketch" in Kanji that you cannot read (but want to read) is a real boon indeed. The only downside is that ATOK is still, after all these years, largely unknown -- especially outside Japan. Most people just trudge along with their inferior Japanese input methods and complain about why things should be better, not knowing there is something better out there. That's why I think Apple can really bring something great to the Japanese market if it could vastly improve Kotoeri by replacing it with ATOK.
Kotoeri has improved through the years, and I am not calling Kotoeri "garbage" or anything of the sort. I am simply saying it could become so much better. And truly, for Japanese people and those who use Japanese, an Input Method is something you use on your computer whenever you use that computer. You get more use out of it than a web browser, word processor or any other individual app simply because you input text everywhere throughout the OS and in every app.
As to Steve Job's sentiments about Japan, I have little doubt his love stems mostly from how Japan benefits Apple's bottom line, including the fact Japan amounts to 6% of Apple's sales and the fact Apple sources key components from Japan and has been trying to source more over the past year. But Steve is also well aware that Japan is a tough market with a very demanding consumer base. And any American company who is truly committed to making the best products possible is obligated to test their products in Japanese waters and then improve those products to the satisfaction of the Japanese. So Steve could also love Japan because Japan has indirectly helped Steve make his products better. Such not only makes better products "for Japan," but better products in overall -- hence my desire to see a better input method in OS X (which again only becomes abundantly clear if you are native Japanese or have lived in Japan many years and use the language here). If the verbal love Job's has expressed for Japan is real, he'll put those words into action, with continued improvements specific to helping the Japanese, above and beyond mere "vertical text in TextEdit."
As to AppleInsider "spelling errors," I've commented on those in other articles from time to time. My feeling is, if there were no spelling or grammar checkers, or if the authors were all amateur writers, such would be excusable. But neither is the case. Moreover, this isn't just any article either. It is classified as a "FEATURE" story. As such my expectations as a reader are higher. One can only hope AppleInsider takes these "spelling mistake" comments to heart in their future articles. But if past comments about bad spelling are any indication, they won't do that for us. I can therefore only express "continued disappointment" at the sheer apathy toward proper writing in English. I can appreciate the desire to kick out articles quickly, but those articles should also be quickly-yet-carefully proofed before published.
Disclaimer: I do not work for Just Systems (creators of ATOK), nor have I ever worked for them, nor do I know anyone who does work for them, nor do I get any direct benefit by speaking positively about ATOK. The content (and bad Japanese) of this particular AppleInsider article coupled with my having lived in Japan over 16 years simply provoked me to write about "Japanese text input improvements." I have no hidden agenda here.
...
As to AppleInsider "spelling errors," I've commented on those in other articles from time to time. My feeling is, if there were no spelling or grammar checkers, or if the authors were all amateur writers, such would be excusable. But neither is the case. Moreover, this isn't just any article either. It is classified as a "FEATURE" story. As such my expectations as a reader are higher. One can only hope AppleInsider takes these "spelling mistake" comments to heart in their future articles. But if past comments about bad spelling are any indication, they won't do that for us. I can therefore only express "continued disappointment" at the sheer apathy toward proper writing in English. I can appreciate the desire to kick out articles quickly, but those articles should also be quickly-yet-carefully proofed before published.
...
I agree with your thoughts on how the quality of web-published articles could and should be better.
I am often dismayed by the number and kind of errors that I see in web articles published by many news reporting sites -- not just the occasional error of AppleInsider, but also errors published by the more 'mainstream' technical journals and outlets.
It is a sad commentary on how the English usage is devolving.