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Japanese Mac Developers Angry

An Archive reader writes:

I want to pass this along to your readers in hope that it will light some fires under the right people at Apple. In Japan, Macs come with two types of keyboards, the standard English keyboard and the JIS keyboard. The JIS keyboard has special keys on it for working with the Japanese language. When you order a G4 from the Apple store in Japan, you can specify an English or Japanese JIS keyboard.


An Archive reader writes:

I want to pass this along to your readers in hope that it will light some fires under the right people at Apple. In Japan, Macs come with two types of keyboards, the standard English keyboard and the JIS keyboard. The JIS keyboard has special keys on it for working with the Japanese language. When you order a G4 from the Apple store in Japan, you can specify an English or Japanese JIS keyboard.

Although you can’t order an English keyboard for iMacs through the store, you can through a special offer through Apple that also included the English OS. Portables are a different matter. Because the keyboards are part of the unit, end-users can not replace the keyboards from a 3rd party source, like a USB keyboard, for example.

In the past, Apple had a program for Japanese developers to change the keyboards on their portable Macs to English. This allowed the developers to test their software on a wide range of machines. They have canceled this program and it has left many Japanese Mac developers angry. They are working with Macintosh OS Software Association (MOSA) to reverse Apple’s decision.

Since Japan is the second largest market for Apple, and some very unique and wonderful Mac programs are made here, I decided to help out the Japanese developers by letting US sites know about the situation. Apple Japan takes its orders from Apple USA, so I’m sure this policy can be returned to the former system without too much trouble.

By the way, if you are thinking “Why don’t they just buy a U.S. Mac?” This is not possible, unless they come to the U.S. Apple does not ship products to International markets to end users. You must buy your Mac from only the Apple store in your country or authorized dealers.

By Jason O'Grady

Founded the PowerPage in 1995.