Anyone notice they look a lot like hanzi instead? Like Android if you don't run the kanji fix app in the playstore. For some reason they still look good on my iPad which has the same iOS on it. I'm really confused. Or crazy?
2014-10-31, 8:45 pm
Which device? I noticed this on the iPhone 6 plus, iPhone 6, and iPhone 5S. My iPad Air from last year works fine still however.
I sent inquiries to a couple app authors of the some of the bigger Japanese apps to see if they were aware and what they had to say.. I got a pretty good response on one:
Hi Paul,
Yes, unfortunately Apple decided to go "All-China" and now prefers Chinese fonts over Japanese ones.
Back on iOS 7, if a system font was missing glyphs, then iOS would chose a matching font for these missing glyphs based on the system language settings. In that list of preferred languages, Japanese was always before Chinese, so missing glyphs were taken from a Japanese font. With iOS 8, Apple reordered this list and so missing glyphs are now taken from a Chinese font.
To make matters worse, the list of preferred languages cannot be reordered by the user anymore. With iOS 7 it was at least possible to set the device to Japanese and then back to English to have an order of English > Japanese > Chinese, but with iOS 8 this does not work anymore.
We've contacted Apple about this and are waiting for their reply.
Greetings from rainy Fukuoka,
Mark Gaensicke
renzo Inc.
----
Considering that I don't see the problem no my iPad, although it's running iOS 8.1 and you say you don't see it on your device, maybe there's a way to make the device display the proper fonts that we're doing on those devices.. but what?
Oh well. I wonder if Apple will reply.
I sent inquiries to a couple app authors of the some of the bigger Japanese apps to see if they were aware and what they had to say.. I got a pretty good response on one:
Hi Paul,
Yes, unfortunately Apple decided to go "All-China" and now prefers Chinese fonts over Japanese ones.
Back on iOS 7, if a system font was missing glyphs, then iOS would chose a matching font for these missing glyphs based on the system language settings. In that list of preferred languages, Japanese was always before Chinese, so missing glyphs were taken from a Japanese font. With iOS 8, Apple reordered this list and so missing glyphs are now taken from a Chinese font.
To make matters worse, the list of preferred languages cannot be reordered by the user anymore. With iOS 7 it was at least possible to set the device to Japanese and then back to English to have an order of English > Japanese > Chinese, but with iOS 8 this does not work anymore.
We've contacted Apple about this and are waiting for their reply.
Greetings from rainy Fukuoka,
Mark Gaensicke
renzo Inc.
----
Considering that I don't see the problem no my iPad, although it's running iOS 8.1 and you say you don't see it on your device, maybe there's a way to make the device display the proper fonts that we're doing on those devices.. but what?
Oh well. I wonder if Apple will reply.
Edited: 2014-10-31, 8:46 pm
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2014-10-31, 9:25 pm
iPhone 5s. My wife has one too. She uses Japanese all the time and hasn't mentioned anything strange. I find it hard to believe that Apple would make a choice that screws with the fonts of japanese users, but maybe it's a mistake. ..Hopefully one that will be rectified quickly.
2014-10-31, 9:34 pm
I found a way to fix it and Apple goofed it but the work around is easy if you know how. Just looking at my iPad and the reply from the Japanese iOS app authors..
In the e-mail from that I got from them, they said you used to have an option to choose the preferred language order. I looked at my iPad under languages and region and it's there. You can choose the order. But this option wasn't on on my iPhone 5S (I assume on my 6+ or 6 either when I had them briefly). What was different? I had enabled a 3rd keyboard or language on my iPad - KOREAN.
So I enabled the Korean keyboard on my iPhone which I hadn't yet done since I really stink at typing Korean and only use it to adjust flashcards and slowly at that. After adding a 3rd language keyboard the option to select preferred language order magically appeared. I didn't have to adjust it.. Chinese isn't on the stupid list at all anyway. My fonts look Japanese again.
In the e-mail from that I got from them, they said you used to have an option to choose the preferred language order. I looked at my iPad under languages and region and it's there. You can choose the order. But this option wasn't on on my iPhone 5S (I assume on my 6+ or 6 either when I had them briefly). What was different? I had enabled a 3rd keyboard or language on my iPad - KOREAN.
So I enabled the Korean keyboard on my iPhone which I hadn't yet done since I really stink at typing Korean and only use it to adjust flashcards and slowly at that. After adding a 3rd language keyboard the option to select preferred language order magically appeared. I didn't have to adjust it.. Chinese isn't on the stupid list at all anyway. My fonts look Japanese again.
Edited: 2014-10-31, 9:35 pm