Apple began actively promoting their new Chinese-language features in both OS X Mountain Lion, and iOS 6 on Monday. The new features should help increase sales in the nation with the largest population in the world.
The sharp focus that Apple has brought to bear on the Chinese market was evident on Monday during a keynote presentation to kick off the Worldwide Developers Conference. While talking up new additions to OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, head of Mac Software Engineering Craig Federighi presented a segment on “Features for China” in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.
“One area I want to highlight especially are some features we’re adding for China,” he said. “The Mac has been growing fantastically in China and we have some wonderful features that we think are going to make it even more popular there.”
Additions include an improved Chinese Pinyin input method, a new dictionary and eight Chinese fonts. Safari will also have the popular Chinese search engine Baidu as a search option, support for micro-blogging via Sina Weibo and video sharing selections for Youku and Tudou.
“It’s going to be important. Get your apps ready for China,” he said to the assembled crowd of developers.
Scott Forstall, Apple’s president of iOS Software, talked about upcoming Siri support for Mandarin and Cantonese in iOS 6. The new support will fulfill a promise the company made last year to teach Siri Chinese in 2012. Siri’s Chinese language abilities will include Mandarin, tuned for both Taiwan and the Chinese mainland, and Cantonese, tuned for Hong Kong and the mainland.
“As part of making Siri more international, we’re now taking local search, which was U.S.-only in iOS, around the world. So you can now do local search even in China,” Forstall said.