Apple unveiled iOS 18 last month at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), introducing a host of new features and enhancements. Among these, Apple has significantly extended support for multiple new languages across the lock screen, Siri, keyboard, and search functionalities. The updates are already available in the two developer betas released in the past few weeks.
Lock screen customization
With iOS 18, users can now customize the lock screen to display time in various numerals, supporting 12 languages: Arabic, Arabic Indic, Bangla, Devanagari, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Malayalam, Meitei, Odia, Ol Chiki, and Telugu. This enhancement caters to a more personalized user experience, allowing users to see time in their preferred script.
Enhanced keyboard features
The keyboard on iOS 18 boasts several updates, including support for trilingual predictive typing. Users can see additional language scripts on the left and right of the suggestion field, making it easy to switch between them. The keyboard allows typing in Latin text and provides suggestions for all three languages based on the input without needing to switch.
In the Messages app, the keyboard remembers the last language used for a particular thread, making multilingual conversations more seamless. The trilingual keyboard supports English, Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu. Additionally, iOS 18 introduces support for a Korean and English multiscript keyboard.
Improved language search
iOS 18 also brings enhanced language search capabilities, allowing users to search for different spellings of similar-sounding words. For example, users can search for both “चंद्र” and “चन्द्र” in Hindi. The new language search feature is available for Assamese, Bangla, Devanagari, and Gujarati.
Other language-related updates
- Live voicemail transcription now supports Indian English.
- The Translate app on iOS 18 now supports Hindi.
- The Live Text feature supports Arabic.
- A new grammar engine has been introduced for Hindi and Korean.
- Users can create contact posters using Indian languages and numerals.
Availability
Apple will release the public version of iOS 18 this fall. While the above-mentioned features are available in the beta versions of iOS 18, these versions might be buggy, and it is advised not to install them on primary devices.
These updates reflect Apple’s commitment to enhancing user experience by supporting a diverse range of languages, making its devices more accessible and user-friendly for a global audience.
