Hungarian Mac OS X Released

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Posted by pudge on Saturday April 17, 2004 @08:53AM from the taking-your-word-for-it dept.

mr100percent writes "Apple's Hungarian web site for Mac OS X is reporting that the Hungarian version of Mac OS X Panther is available for download for 10.3.0, three point releases back, requiring you to downgrade if you're above. Only the system applications have been localized: iApps and Help menus remain in English. A more current Hungarian localization is currently in development."

46 of 60 comments (clear)

in other news... by Mengoxon · 2004-04-17 09:17 · Score: 4, Funny

...Icelandic language version of Mac OS X Panther still waiting to be released.
Hungarian Translation by Gleng · 2004-04-17 09:22 · Score: 5, Funny

"My iHovercraft is full of eels!"

--
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
hungarian_notation? by minus_273 · 2004-04-17 09:40 · Score: 2, Funny

what_i_thought_hungarian_notation_was_out_of_fashi on...

--
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Who is responsible for the localisations? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-04-17 09:48 · Score: 1, Interesting

From what I know it is not Apple in the US that is in charge of the localisation to different languages, like this is Apple Hungary's work and not Apple US's work is this true? at least this is what I've been told when I went to Dubai a few months back, I met with people from Apple ME, I asked them if they had an Arabic OS X? they told me they are still working on that and they released an early version of an Arabic Jaguar which my clients either never heard of or said a three month old monkey using an online translator to translate English to German to Japanese to French back to English then to Russian from that to Arabic could've done a better job translating. I've been told however, that Apple ME is crap, but my experience with them when I needed help with my PB showed that they are worse.

I think Apple in Cupertino should find better people to represent them internationally, they should get those localisations out and fast!
1. Re:Who is responsible for the localisations? by Draoi · 2004-04-17 10:08 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Actually, a lot of the localisation is done in Ireland (at Apple's last internal manufacturing site, now that Sacramento has been shut down). How do I know? I work there! :-)
  
  --
  Alison
  "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
2. Re:Who is responsible for the localisations? by nettdata · 2004-04-17 10:27 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  That's pretty interesting, in that a lot of Oracle's I18N work is also done in Ireland. I wonder what it is that makes Ireland such the I18N hotbed?
  
  --
  
  $0.02 (CDN)
3. Re:Who is responsible for the localisations? by Big+Sean+O · 2004-04-17 12:41 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  They speak English.
  
  They're part of the EU.
  
  They have good education, particularly in IT.
  
  They were so friggin' poor 10 years ago that they were attractive to outside investment.
  
  Very good beer.
  
  They seem to have whipped their terrorism problem for the most part.
  
  --
  My father is a blogger.
4. Re:Who is responsible for the localisations? by Sophrosyne · 2004-04-17 13:44 · Score: 1
  
  My Grandfather was born in Ireland, he got a grade 6 education and had a dirt floor. Sounds like things have gotten better in almost 100 years ;)
5. Re:Who is responsible for the localisations? by gameboy64 · 2004-04-17 20:33 · Score: 1
  
  yup, and i think there's various incentives for companies who base their eu operations in ireland, or there were in the past.
6. Re:Who is responsible for the localisations? by Lars+T. · 2004-04-17 22:54 · Score: 1
  
  Errrm. Okay. Apple is closing its Sacramento manufacturing operation [...] will continue to employ workers at the facility in nonmanufacturing areas.
  How do you think Apple does translations, on an assembly line?
  
  --
  Lars T.
  To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
7. Re:Who is responsible for the localisations? by Draoi · 2004-04-17 23:05 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  How do you think Apple does translations, on an assembly line?
  With great difficulty, I suspect! Just as well, then, that there's a lot more than manufacturing at both sites; there are call centers, R&D, operations support, localisation, finance, applestore, etc, etc. I work in a secure lab, yet I walk through the production area every day. G5s everywhere.
  Both sites are a lot more than manufacturing, y'know ...
  
  --
  Alison
  "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
8. Re:Who is responsible for the localisations? by ollie_ob · 2004-04-17 23:11 · Score: 1
  
  Iceland is *not* part of the EU. And the beer there costs $10 a pint...
  
  --
  #define ROSE any_other_name
9. Re:Who is responsible for the localisations? by mattkime · 2004-04-18 04:05 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  wow, a woman posting on slashdot that works for apple....
  
  prepare for marriage proposals!
  
  --
  Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
10. Re:Who is responsible for the localisations? by julian_severn · 2004-04-18 22:27 · Score: 1
  
  I don't think that this translation is done in Ireland. Situation in Hungary is very odd: there is a distribution firm called HDSys, which is responsible to Hungarian sales, but no service centers, tiny allowable markup. It is marvelous that they translated it to Hungarian.
  
  Besides, there are Hungarian-speaker mac users. Just check out beszeljukmac.com and mac.hu.
  
  And yes, I expect a lot more MacOS users in the future, thanks to the Hungarian translation. There is a user friendly series in a local tv channel called fix.tv about Mac, which makes demand of Hungarian version.
11. Re:Who is responsible for the localisations? by rolocroz · 2004-04-19 15:17 · Score: 1
  
  So what? He was talking about Ireland.
  
  --
  I meta-mod all positive moderation Unfair, because it's abuse of the system.
Eszem-faszom megáll! by Mrs.+Grundy · 2004-04-17 12:00 · Score: 2, Funny

A fene egye meg! Nem értek magyarul.
1. Re:Eszem-faszom megáll! by larkost · 2004-04-17 12:31 · Score: 1
  
  I too wish that my Hungarian was up to par... I have been wanting to take the full immersion course offered in Debrecen for a number of years.. I wish that this was the one I was going to finally do it.
  
  Ps.. to the mods.. parent post if funny...
2. Re:Eszem-faszom megáll! by pbox · 2004-04-17 13:05 · Score: 1
  
  "Eszem-faszom megáll!"
  
  Coming from a Mrs. it is a physical impossibility.
  
  --
  Code poet, espresso fiend, starter upper.
3. Re:Eszem-faszom megáll! by AndrewHowe · 2004-04-17 17:24 · Score: 1
  
  Zöld erdöben jártam
  Kék ibolyát láttam
  El akart hervadni
  Szabad e locsolni?
  
  Hehe, it's only a week late... I met my wife in Budapest 3 years ago during Easter.
Hungarian Phrasebook by javax · 2004-04-17 13:25 · Score: 1

Lets hope they didn't use the Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook!
Amazing by skrysakj · 2004-04-17 14:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

I wonder why Apple's language support isn't showcased or talked about more often.

I've only seen people complain "It doesn't support Greek!", which is understandable (and maybe it should) but it is localized in so many different languages, right out of the box, and that is underappreciated.
Spanish? Japanese? Korean? etc... it's all in there.

On a side note, I do wonder why they are localizing it for Hungarian. Is it because of strong demand? Ease of translation?
1. Re:Amazing by Ilgaz · 2004-04-17 18:43 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Also in other news, Turkish OS X started to ship. Currently only testing mags has it in hands but Apple TR states "orders opened". http://www.apple.com.tr/macosx/
  
  If there are any turkish reading this, they would agree. Apple is almost perfectionist in translating stuff. E.g. they translated Netscape 4.x to turkish while no turkish netscape exists.
  
  The "turkish" Windows really, really sux. They translated it like babelfish, real funny (or, tragicomic?), "invented words" etc. While on the other hand, since Mac OS 7 (or before, not sure) there was a perfect turkish MacOS in hand, all the time.
  
  I saw people flaming Apple TR for not shipping OS X Turkish and its hard for non coding people to understand the big deal, its all done now. I bet Hungarian people, got used to local MacOS for years demanded it. Especially media sector.
  
  Only problem is with Quicktime 6.5 I heard... Well that 6.5 release creates problems everywhere, so no big deal :)
  
  Now, it doesn't support greek? Sure? Poor Apple Greece, I can imagine the flames they get after people hear Turkish OS X :))
2. Re:Amazing by Froomb · 2004-04-17 21:50 · Score: 1
  
  Here hair!
  
  Thanks to os x language support I can easily combine Korean, Japanese, Chinese (both flavors), and English in my academic writing. Really a joy to use and largely unappreciated by the my benighted colleagues stuck with windows.
  
  "In the north it's the women. . ."
3. Re:Amazing by (C)0N0(R) · 2004-04-22 17:27 · Score: 1
  
  I recently was asked to configure a Turkish -(not sure of the correct description)keyboard Dell laptop running W2k pro (Turkish chars.).
  I speak English, not fluent in any other (human) language;
  Client (human) speaks: Turkish/English/Portugese/others...
  (Seems that the ".", "i", other keys are located differently on the keyboard. )
  I was shoulder-coached by the user about the keyboard differences; he, not technically inclined at all, read me the dialogs.
  Items I had him translate were sometimes non-sensical, but I could get the 'gist' of the function.
  I was able to get him internet access, printer, and file sharing by mostly clicking thru the Windoes GUI.
  Not having the opportunity to try doing same on any other OS/platform, I wonder how difficult/easy it would be.
  
  --
  The light at the end of the tunnel is a train.
4. Re:Amazing by Ilgaz · 2004-04-26 06:20 · Score: 1
  
  Let me tell, as a guy loving my native language...
  
  Windows Turkish amazingly sucks. I mean, real amazingly. I know couple of translators worked for the '95 translation which is root of all, those were guys who are purely computer clueless people, they were using a dos (also virus infected) prowrite diskette at '96 even!
  
  How do I know them? Eh :)) I am TV pro and they were translating movies. Could give a clue how bad translation is.
  
  I can't forgive them since there were excellent, native turkish Mac OS around these times and they could use those words which are really, really modern and clean turkish.
  
  Yes, I told it to their faces too :)
Just imagine... by Nice2Cats · 2004-04-17 14:33 · Score: 1

...if we had a posting on the front page of Slashdot every time KDE was ported to another language. I mean, really, it's not like Hungarian is terribly exotic. For a lot of us here, the place is just around the corner.
Wake me when it is out in Klingon, please.
1. Re:Just imagine... by CaptainPinko · 2004-04-17 16:35 · Score: 1
  
  I think the newsworthy aspect is that it took so long or that it just got upgraded and even then not completely.
  
  After all, Hungary is that small or unknown a country (as opposed to Welsh and some other exotic Anglo-Saxon languages spoken my minorities that Microsoft has translated to).
  
  Personally I'm really surprised. Simply translating software (this is fundamental on a desktop where people are less technical and less likely to know english -- AFAIK almost all hackers know english ESR states it va sa requirement) opens up the market you have access to dramatically and we all now Apple can use as much of it as possible.
  
  Actually this might be the best strategy for developing market share, be the first OS ported to lets say Swahili or Cree (for give my ignorance of the extent fof the popularity of these languages). I realize that it is not feasible for all lanugages (economic and social factors both), but really there are a lot of minorities in Europe and this could be a strong selling point. Hhmmm...
  
  --
  Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
2. Re:Just imagine... by Mengoxon · 2004-04-17 18:15 · Score: 1
  
  Well, there is 3 million Welsh and 10 million Hungarians. But the GDP of Wales is 16.4 billion US$ while that of Hungary is 13.4 billion US$.
  
  I rest my case!
3. Re:Just imagine... by Mengoxon · 2004-04-17 18:21 · Score: 1
  
  Estimated speakers of Cree in US and Canada: 81,000
  
  Estimated speakers of Swahili: 30,000,000
  
  Advice to Apple: Forget about Cree
  
  Advice to Slashdot: If Apple still make the mistake, do not post news entitled "Cree Mac OS X Released"
4. Re:Just imagine... by CaptainPinko · 2004-04-17 19:09 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  I'm afraid you argument may be flawed since how many people in Wales speak Welsh? Well enough to use a computer in Welsh? As a primary language so that they wouldn't perfer to use the regular English(CDN/US/UK/AU/insert flavour here) version? The point was about tapping into new markets. Translating into Welsh might get them access only to ($4 billion-- that is assuming 25% meet the mentioned criteria which I think is safely high--but I'm not in the UK so I could b wrong). Whereas a Hungarian version would probably open up around $11 billion. For example I'd rather use a Candian English OS (eg "colour" not "color") but I will use UK or US, but I will not use Korean or Welsh (since I know neither language).
  
  --
  Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
5. Re:Just imagine... by root+66 · 2004-04-17 19:10 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Well, there are Klingon localizations of a few GNUstep apps iirc (Affiche being one, iirc). I don't know if those have been ported to OS X, though.
  
  --
  -- I love the smell of Blue Screens in the morning.
6. Re:Just imagine... by Mengoxon · 2004-04-17 19:11 · Score: 1
  
  My argument? I did not make an argument?
7. Re:Just imagine... by CaptainPinko · 2004-04-17 19:49 · Score: 1
  
  "I rest my case" sounds like something that would follow the conclusion of an argument.
  
  --
  Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
8. Re:Just imagine... by Mengoxon · 2004-04-17 21:12 · Score: 1
  
  "sounds like something" sounds like an imputation...
  
  Objection! Your honor!
9. Re:Just imagine... by Lars+T. · 2004-04-17 22:35 · Score: 1
  
  But (according to the CIA World Factbook) only about 26% of the population of Wales speaks Welsh.
  
  --
  Lars T.
  To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
10. Re:Just imagine... by Mengoxon · 2004-04-17 23:23 · Score: 1
  
  ...maybe they are referring to Welsh as a first language?
11. Re:Just imagine... by molnarcs · 2004-04-18 01:15 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  gp:"I mean, really, it's not like Hungarian is terribly exotic."
  Well, it's not terribly exotic if we look at usage - there are many many languages that have fewer speakers. OTOH it is exotic inasmuch as it doesn't have any relatives in the surrounding countries - its not slavic, it doesn't have anything to do with germanic or latin 'derivatives', and linguists think that even the finnish relation is strained. So it is a small miracle that it survived at all for 1000+ years.
  CP: "AFAIK almost all hackers know english ESR states it va sa requirement) opens up the market you have access to dramatically and we all now Apple can use as much of it as possible."
  Well, major OSs are translated - hungarian MS Windows follows the english debut by only a few weeks (same with Office). KDE has excellent hungarian support, FreeBSD has a hungarian section, etc. The unfortunate thing is that MS thinks of us as a significant market, for our government (the last one) payed them tons of money to force down MS products on the throats of students and workers in higher education. So me, as a student, I'm now entitled to a freely downloadable (its called microsoft campus) Windows XP professional, and Office XP. What really sucks is that I use neither, yet indirectly, my usage for these software was already payed for.
Delirious - pokers stops! by njchick · 2004-04-17 14:46 · Score: 1

Not dissertate in Hungarian.
Courtesy of http://intertran.tranexp.com/
Re:In related news.... by Lars+T. · 2004-04-17 22:41 · Score: 3, Funny

Well guess what was keeping him?

--
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Hungarian is easy... by yuvtob · 2004-04-18 01:44 · Score: 1

let's see them localize in Hebrew - it's right-to-left, not the usual roman characters, most translated stuff won't be understood by the users (which there are about 10 of...).
1. Re:Hungarian is easy... by FredFnord · 2004-04-18 07:34 · Score: 1
  
  Why, Hebrew is almost as hard as... saaaay... Japanese?
  
  Oh, wait, no it isn't.
  
  -fred
  
  --
  Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Aw that's nothing, how about Hungarian Notation? by saddino · 2004-04-18 05:23 · Score: 1

menuFile menuEdit menuView ...
Re:In related news.... by gooru · 2004-04-18 07:21 · Score: 1

I only know one person who speaks hungarian, and he doesn't use OSX.

I'm willing to bet there are 10,000,000+ people in Hungary who speak Hungarian as well.
Is Microsoft behind this? by Chief+Typist · 2004-04-18 07:39 · Score: 1

I'm sure that this guy is somehow responsible. If you've ever had to read Hungarian notation, I'm sure you'll agree.

:-)

More info here

-ch
I wonder why Apple lets them do this by Mitz+Pettel · 2004-04-18 08:58 · Score: 1

Seems to me it will only downgrade the user experience. Imagine after users install this partial localization on their 10.3.0 and apply incremental updates, as Software Update will no doubt suggest, and end up with applications whose code has been updated without the supporting localized UI resources being updated to match.
Re:This article is a fucking insult by huchida · 2004-04-18 12:33 · Score: 1

Yeah, none of that crap is worth the money. And neither is the damn tote bag you get from PBS. But if you have the cash to spare, and you want to see something you enjoy stay alive a while longer, you donate anyway.