September 13 – Riding on the technological revolution sweeping across the mobile world, for the first time,Tamil language has found its place in smart phones. iOS 7, which is Apple’s operating system for Apple’s iPhones and iPads has a built-in support for Tamil keyboards and this is expected to open-up new horizons for the language in terms of internet usage and content development.
iOS 7, which will be used in newly introduced iPhones 5S and 5C versions and iPad tablets, incorporates two popular versions of the Tamil keyboards, ‘Tamil 99’ and ‘Murasu Anjal’.
Users can choose one of the two keyboards to compose Tamil text in any applications on the iPhones, iPads or iPod Touch devices.
Prior to this, users had to compose Tamil text in a dedicated app and then had to cut and paste the text into another app. Among such apps ‘Sellinam’ was the most popular app which served this purpose. ‘Sellinam’ enabled users to send sms text messages in Tamil and users were able to use the Tamil keyboard once they have downloaded the ‘Sellinam’app.
With the introduction of built-in Tamil keyboards, those using iPhones and tablet devices with iOS 7 need not cut and paste the Tamil text anymore, as they would be able to directly type on the screens for sending SMS. They would be also able to use Tamil texts directly in Facebook, twitter, whatsapp, viber and a host of other similar apps.
Furthermore, users would be able search for content in Tamil, keep the names in their address book in Tamil and also name the songs in their play list in Tamil. All of these can be searched in Tamil from any screen.
In the Android world, users were celebrating this ability when Sellinam was introduced as a system-wide input method in 2012. Now, iPhone users can have all of these facilities even without downloading any app.
“Tamil community must take advantage of the development”…
Muthu Nedumaran, (pic) the technical architect of ‘Sellinam’, when asked to comment on the introduction of Tamil language in iOS 7 said: “This is a very exciting phase of development in our long battle to put the Tamil language on smart devices. Tamil99 and Anjal keyboards together with lovely looking Tamil fonts makes it delightful to read and write Tamil text on iOS devices. We hope the Tamil speaking community will take advantage of this to produce and consume more Tamil content using iOS 7 devices. Only then will we see more and more technology being introduced for Tamil in smart devices”.
Muthu Nedumaran is also the technical architect behind ‘Selliyal’, the first news portal in Malaysia on web and mobile platforms in Tamil and English languages.
Since, Apple has adopted Tamil language in its iOS 7 devices, the next generation of Android devices are also expected adopt Tamil language in its devices.
-R.Mutharasan
