iPadOS 15 adds Scribble support for Japanese

Last year with iPadOS 14, Apple added a new feature called Scribble that allowed users to use Apple Pencil to hand-write words into any field in the operating system and then convert it to text (without the app being aware of that functionality, since it’s at the OS level).

I was immediately excited about adding this to KameSame, but it didn’t support Japanese language. Well, as of today’s iPadOS 15 announcement, we know now Scribble will work for Japanese this fall. I installed the beta and tried out KameSame and it immediately worked. Here’s a quick demo on Twitter:

This is going to be a total game changer for anyone wanting to integrate writing practice for producing kanji and vocabulary as they’re quizzed on it. Very few apps do this well, and I’m not familiar with any web apps that do. Most other handwriting IMEs only support Chinese, so seeing this kind of support is really exciting

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I was excited to. I exclusively use an iPad for stuff and being able to practice handwriting like this is a game changer.

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it is actually a great thing that iPad now supports scribble support for Japanese. I think it is a great advantage for those who are having a difficult time in learning the language.

They also added text selection from images, which supports Japanese.

Unfortunately, Japanese didn’t make the cut for Live Text. Hopefully next year. iOS 15、とうとう写真内の文字認識機能「Live Text」機能を手に入れる(ただし日本語非対応) #WWDC2021 | ギズモード・ジャパン

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No way! Thanks for the correction. I heard they said “including Traditional and Simplified Chinese” and just assumed that they support Japanese as well…

Yeah, that was the same deal with Scribble last year. Chinese has become a higher priority for Apple despite Japanese having been the top priority non-roman alphabet language for the company from the mid 80s through 2015 or so

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I’m glad I stumbled across this. Stoked that there will be native Japanese scribble support this fall…something to look forward to! Thanks @searls I’ve been getting by with the traditional Chinese support for some things in the meantime.

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