Many Tamil native users are often frustrated with iOS due to the system wide unavailability of the Tamil keyboard. To type in Tamil you need to use third-party applications such as Sellinam and then copy paste to where you wanted it to come. But iOS7 gonna change things around for Tamil native users.
Tamil keyboard in Android
Even Android doesn’t have a native Tamil keyboard but they have an open API for developers to develop any keyboard they wish. As the result there are so many free Tamil keyboards started to show up which catered the user’s requirement to type directly in Tamil.
But companies like Samsung and HTC do release their handset with Indian keyboards including Tamil.
iOS7 and Tamil
Forget the iOS and Android comparison, the good news is that, with iOS7 users will get native Tamil Keyboard. Thanks to Apple for bringing the Tamil support to next level.
By looking at the image you can clearly see that the keyboard layout is following closer to Tamil 99 standards. Glad Apple is following the standards set by the government of Tamil Nadu. If you have a developer account with Apple, you may preview iOS 7 too.
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vaduvurkumar says
நன்றாக இருக்கு.
Mayooresan says
நிச்சயமாக 🙂
Arunan Skanthan says
Hey mate,
Who do you think would be in power to get in touch with the keyboard creators, would be great to have anjal support as well!
Mayooresan says
No idea. I’ll check and see but usually those information are hard to get.
செந்தில் says
“Glad Apple is following the standards set by the government of Tamil Nadu.”
why are you glad? where is the evidence that those “standards” are optimal or even desirable?
the keyboard layout created under the name Tamil99 is aptly named, because it is only good enough for the 20th century, the infancy of Tamil language in information technology. it is NOT a good keyboard for the 21st century.
i once had a conversation with Dr. M. Anandakrishnan who chaired the committee in charge of creating the Tamil99 keyboard, and it was clear from his recollection of the events that the committee’s objective was simply to reach agreement on *any* keyboard, not necessarily a good keyboard. he was working with others in that committee, several of whom had no expertise in even basic computing, with very basic concepts of placing மெய்யெழுத்து on one side of the keyboard, உயிரெழுத்து on the other side, and grouping of இன எழுத்துகள்.
but there was no scientific basis for the individual Tamil99 letter placements. this is clearly indicated by the location of the க letter — the most frequently used consonant in the modern language — in the place of the English Qwerty keyboard’s ‘h’ key — a weak key position. i submitted an abstract to the TI2004 conference detailing some of these shortcomings, and the results were based on data of letter frequencies.
now we are seeing with the screenshot of this new iOS7 keyboard that Apple has modified some key placements, including the ஆய்த எழுத்து. why has Apple moved it to a peripheral location next to the spacebar, especially when we know this key will be used very frequently?
a native keyboard that allows us to type directly in the language is certainly an important goal. we should create this keyboard in a way that is data-driven, transparent, mobilizes the best minds, insulated from political influence, and avoids conflicts of interest.
as the events of the last 15 years have clearly shown, the “government of Tamil Nadu” is totally unconcerned about the survival of our language or even the people who speak the language, unless it serves some narrow political purpose of ruling politicians.
many diaspora thamils who can touch type in English are avid users of a Romanised transliteration keyboard (first introduced in Murasu Anjal). we would also welcome the introduction of this keyboard as a native keyboard in iOS, just as it is available with Tamil99 as a default keyboard in the last several releases of OS X.
NVK Ashraf says
I have been waiting for this. I was frustrated to see Apple not allowing the import of third party keyboards that will permit typing directly. Using an Editor and then copy pasting is cumbersome. I have ipad mini and I don’t know when this ios7 will be made available. A phonetic based keyboard would have been ideal, but the Hindi one available on Ipad is also not phonetic.
saenthan says
is it true that Tamil native keyboard is available in iOS 7. But it was not mentioned in any documentation ,s o how is this possible.