Information and tips on localizing iPhone Apps

1. Localization of iPhone Apps
DevDays 2009 – Dublin, April 23
Keywords International
Giacomo Duranti, Chief Operating Officer
gduranti@keywordsintl.com • +353‐1‐5237538
www.keywordsintl.com

2. KEY ‐ DATES
1998 ‐ Keywords International Ltd was founded to provide Localization
•
services to the software industry
2004 ‐ Keywords International Ltd decided to work exclusively on Games
•
and to cut all non core business lines.
2009 ‐ Keywords International is a leader in video game localization,
•
localization testing and linguistic QC.
– Connecting directly to the target audience – no matter what language they
speak.
– Translating and testing in over 30 languages and 8 platforms
– Over 75 employees – hundreds of projects each year
– All services carried out in our facility in Dublin

3. KEY ‐ SERVICES
• Localization
– Translation
– Audio Recording
– Quality Control
• Testing
Testing Scripting
–
Bug Fixing
–
100 Seats State of the Art Testing Lab
–
Compliance testing
–
• Language Quality Control
– Linguistic Support
– Terminology Management
– Quality and Geopolitical Assessment

4. PLATFORMS

5. KEY ‐ CUSTOMERS

6. KEY ‐ PROJECTS

7. KEY ‐ PROJECTS

8. WHAT IS LOCALIZATION?
• Internationalization is the process of
designing and building an application to
facilitate localization.
• Localization is the cultural and linguistic
adaptation of an internationalized
application to two or more culturally‐
distinct markets.
• When users launch a well‐localized application,
they should feel fully at home with it and not
feel like it originated from some other country.

9. WHY LOCALIZE?
Increase sales
• Expand the market
– Yes, they don’t speak English.
• Increase the penetration of the product
– Localized products sell better
• ROI can be very good
– iPhone App Store & Favourable factors

10. WHEN & HOW TO LOCALIZE?
• Plan for localization from the start
– Retrofitting an existing application to
support localization is much harder than
writing your application that way from the
start .
• Use the SDK
– iPhone has a robust localization
architecture that lets you easily localize
your application into multiple languages.
And variants of a language...
For en_US it’s LOCALIZATION
For en_GB it’s LOCALISATION

11. WHAT TO LOCALIZE?
Not only text needs localization
• Windows, views, menus must be able to accept
translated text.
• Static text must be translated.
• Images might need to be changed.
• Sound files might need to be changed.
• Dates, times, currencies and numerical values
must be formatted using the current locale
information.
Word wrapping should use current locale rules.
•
Sorting must be done based on current locale rules.
•
Online help must be translated.
•

12. TIPS & TRICKS
Design with localization in mind
• Allow more space
– Translated text is longer than the English
• Be aware of display differences in other
languages
– Asian languages
– Bi‐directional languages
• Beware of sentences constructed by
concatenating strings
• Document the strings file with
comments – provide context

13. CONCLUSIONS
• Plan to localize your Apps
– Plan for localization since the beginning
It’s a small effort – you will be rewarded
• Localize your Apps
– Go global
It’s a small investment – you will be rewarded
• Localize your Apps seriously
– It better be good
– Good is better

14. THANKS!
QUESTIONS?
Email: gduranti@keywordsintl.com
Website: www.keywordsintl.com