iOS and iPadOS are getting a major feature aimed at South Africans
Apple revealed the next versions of its device operating systems, including iOS 27 and iPadOS 27, would get software keyboards for South Africa’s three most spoken languages: Afrikaans, Xhosa, and Zulu.
According to South Africa’s last reliable census data from 2011, Zulu was the primary language in 22.7% of households, Xhosa in 16%, and Afrikaans in 13.5%.
While the standings did not change in the 2022 census, the proportions shifted significantly, with Zulu the primary language in 24.4% of households surveyed and Afrikaans sinking to 10.6%.
However, the 2022 census is widely regarded as inaccurate due to significant undercounting of parts of the South African population.
The high undercount was particularly pronounced in the Western Cape, with Stats SA reporting difficulties in obtaining an accurate census of White and Coloured residents.
Since Afrikaans is historically the most widely spoken language in the Western Cape, the proportion of Afrikaans speakers was likely undercounted in the 2022 census.
While Google’s Android operating system has supported South African languages for years, Apple users had to battle with or disable autocorrect or use a third-party keyboard.
Apple added support for third-party keyboards in 2014 with iOS 8. Ten years later, with iOS 18, it added multilingual keyboard functionality.
This allowed users to add up to three languages to the default Apple software keyboard and select a layout that lets them type in all three without switching keyboards.
iOS 26, the successor to iOS 18, added bilingual suggestions for 10 languages. While users typed in English, the keyboard would suggest both Latin and local-script versions of the word.
iOS 26 also added new features for app developers to handle users’ language preferences and locale-specific settings, which affect date and currency formatting.
Apple renumbered and harmonised its operating system version numbers to align with the year in which they would primarily be used.
Improvements in Apple *OS 27
The information about Apple’s next device OS update containing Afrikaans, Xhosa, and Zulu keyboards was briefly shown on a slide during its Worldwide Developer Conference keynote on Monday.
Stacey Ford, vice president for operating system programme management at Apple, said they scoured every part of the OS for opportunities to refine their system, from the user interface to the foundations.
“Attention to detail has always been core to Apple’s DNA. Nothing was off limits, no enhancement too small,” she said.
“We made things faster, smoother, even easier to use, and we took care of a bunch of things you’ve been asking about.”
Ford said that, in addition to several design improvements, they also spent a lot of time working on fundamentals such as memory usage, CPU utilisation, networking operations, and display rendering.
“We optimised the parts of the system that make a big difference in the responsiveness of our products,” she said.
“For example, system animations are smoother, like swiping between Home Screen pages on your iPhone, entering Mission Control, or moving between spaces on Mac.”
Another foundational improvement in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and MacOS 27 Golden Gate is the rebuilding of search, which powers Spotlight, Photos, and Mail.
“At its core is the search index, a rich catalogue your device builds of all your content so it can understand what you have and where to find it,” said Ford.
“We re-architected the index so it’s more stable, more efficient, and more comprehensive of content, both old and new.”
Ford explained that after users update, Apple’s new search infrastructure will index the content on their devices, giving it a complete picture of what was already there.
“As new content comes in, it’s indexed almost immediately. So when you go to search, you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
Ford said they were also implementing changes in iOS 27 that would make older iPhones feel more responsive, which has to do with the CPU scheduler.
“On our newer iPhones, iOS already has an advanced CPU scheduler. This year, we further optimised it so it’s even more efficient when handling performance-intensive workloads,” she said.
“Not only that, but we also figured out a way to bring it to older models, all the way back to iPhone 11. That means iOS 27 is available to more users than any iOS release ever.”
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