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Mobile Phones w/ Support for Chinese Characters?
antifoidulus asks: "I am learning both Chinese and Japanese(well, I can converse in Japanese, but I can only say that I want to eat stuff in Chinese!) and I was curious if there were any phones available in the US which I can use to read/write Chinese/Japanese characters. I frequently communicate with friends in Japan, and I would like be able to send Japanese mail on my phone. I have a
Japanese phone, but it seems Verizon says that it will not work on their network. I would prefer to have something that I can upload Java programs to, so I can customize my language practice."
...on Verizon phones if you intend to download them across their network. They only support Brew applications, and the SDK is like $1500. Verizon only allows App downloads from their for-pay Get It Now service. (You can use a cable and gagin to load apps directly into the phone). There is talk of a Brew JRE, but I haven't seen it and I'd guess it'd be too big and too slow.
I'm going to re-research carriers when my current contract is up - I want my Java phone!
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
While this is true, there are PLENTY of phones that can do japanise / chinese character encoding.
The basic way to so it, with only the ~12 buttons or so on a mobile phone, is to mark the keys with the different types of strokes that make up the chacters. Chinese charaters (and therfore at least some of japanise, but i don't know how to write 'any' japanise) are written in a particular order from a finite set of strokes, so it you know how to write chineese properly (i.e. know the stroke order rules not just the 'pretty pictures') this system is VERY usable.
In fact I can use a chineese phone to type better than i can use a full keyboard, because the system makes more sense to me.
Also for the chineese, getting a chineese font ain't that hard, and if your using java to build and app, then its unicode anyway.
If you could be bothered to code an app, all you'd need is a java phone, and a marker to add the stokes to the keys.
Well, Japanese and Korean at least necessitate either romanized input, or input with a uniquely Japanese layout. I'm guessing that for an English-speaking user, romanized input is just as well.
It's interesting how Java uses Unicode internally, though... The encoding conversion necessary to send the e-mails off to an Asian phone might not be that hard, and if the current Java-capable phones (like the Nokia 3510i) are already capable of correctly rendering Asian text, then it's more or less just a matter of creating an input method and a simple e-mail client.
www.e28.com -- cool phone. does everything.
Verizon is standard CDMA and no Japanese phones use that. In fact, Japanese phones don't use anything used elsewhere in the world, except the now brand-new W-CDMA standard. Cellphone manufacturers are just now making tri-band dual-standard phones that roam between the newer W-CDMA networks in japan (and rolling out elsewhere in the world) and the older GSM service.
GSM service in the United States exists with Cingular, T-Mobile, and the soon tobe defunct ATT. Oddly enough, Vodafone owns a chunk of Verizon, but the CDMA standard isn't used by Vodafone anywhere else in the world, everything else is GSM. I think Vodafone really wanted ATT Wireless to expand their US presence in a compatible way but they have that Verizon boat anchor that probably kept them from making a bid.
Since I live in Japan now, I have had to ramp up on how cell phones work. They are definitely cooler here.