Apple has introduced additional features through its iOS update aimed at enhancing user experience in India, including support for new Indian fonts and numerals, multilingual keyboards for diverse language input, improved language search, and multilingual Siri capabilities, the company announced Tuesday.
"iOS 18 elevates iPhone to be more personal, capable, and intelligent than ever before. This major release offers increased customization options, the most significant Photos app redesign to date, new inbox management tools in Mail, and much more," Apple stated.
In this update, users can now customize the lock screen time display with Indian numerals from 12 languages—Arabic, Arabic Indic, Bangla, Devanagari, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Malayalam, Meitei, Odia, Ol Chiki, Telugu—and adjust font color and weight to achieve their desired Contact Posters appearance.
iOS 18 also introduced Live Voicemail Transcription in Indian English, Live Caller ID support, smart call history search, and an improved phone keypad search and dialing experience.
The update brings users the "multilingual keyboard" feature. On iPhone 12 and later models, users can now phonetically type in Latin characters for English and up to two additional Indian languages, providing a trilingual predictive typing experience in Messages, Notes, and anywhere the keyboard is accessible. The multilingual keyboard also supports QuickPath and Emoji Prediction.
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Additionally, iPhones now support alphabetical layouts for 11 Indian languages, enabling direct typing in Indian scripts. "Keys are arranged alphabetically, with vowel and conjunct keys dynamically adjusting based on user input, making it easier to find the correct characters," the tech giant noted.
Alphabetical layouts are available for 11 languages—Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.
The iOS update also includes enhanced language search, multilingual Siri, the Translate app, Move to iOS app, and enhanced dual SIM control features.