Most of us know the drill - write the app, crank out the code and localize later. Thinking about localizing your iOS app up front will save you tons of time later. I'll also talk about a great project that can help you put translation into the hands of your users.

1. Localization
Realization
Aaron Douglas
@astralbodies

2. Who am I?
• Aaron Douglas
• Red Arrow Labs in Milwaukee
• Mobile (iOS & Android) & Enterprise
Java Developer

3. Internationalization vs
Localization
• i18n vs L10n
• i18n = adapting to work everywhere
• L10n = additional features for a
specific locale

4. What Is the Point?
• Language
• Culture
• Conventions
• Legal

5. Sounds hard.
• It can be difficult
• It’s not as easy as
translate.google.com
• It can pay off big

6. Why Localize?
• Opens up markets for your product(s)
• Apple gives “free” insertion into
localized App Stores
• Greater income
• Your power users = your translators

7. When do I start?
• From day one
• Existing application

8. What do I localize?
• Strings
• Numbers
• Dates
• Images
• Layouts

9. NSLocale

10. NSLocale
• Encapsulates a lot of information
• Language
• Cultural conventions
• Dates
• Numbers

11. Different Locales
• System Locale
• Current Locale
• NSCurrentLocaleDidChangeNotification

12. Strings

13. Strings
• NSLocalizedString
• XIB/NIB/Storyboards
• Localizable.strings
• lproj folders
• UTF-16 files

14. Keys, Values and
Comments
cell.textLabel.text =
NSLocalizedString(@"All-day",
@"All-day switch label");
/* All-day switch label */
"All-day" = "All-day";

15. genstrings & ibtool
find . -name *.m | xargs genstrings -o en.lproj/
ibtool --generate-strings-file MainMenu.strings
MainMenu.xib
ibtool --strings-file MainMenu.strings -write ../French.lproj/MainMenu.xib
MainMenu.xib

16. Looks can be deceiving
• Keys are unique to each strings file
• Don’t overload!
• UTF-16 plays hell with email
• Use the comments properly
• Positional parameters

17. Comparing & Sorting
• A a B b C c D d = English
• a, A, b, B, c, C, ä, Ä = Swedish
• Called collation
• -compare: is wrong
• Use -localizedStandardCompare:

18. Validation
• Your validation logic may be localedependent
• Postal codes
• Regular Expressions

19. Debugging
NSDictionary *defaults = @{
@"NSShowNonLocalizableStrings": @(YES),
@"NSShowNonLocalizedStrings": @(YES)};
!
[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults]
registerDefaults:defaults];
!
[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults]
synchronize];

20. Numbers

21. NSNumberFormatter
• +localizedStringFromNumber:number
Style:
• Styles: General, Currency, Percentage,
Scientific, Spell-Out

22. Examples
• @45678.90
• General: 45,678.90
• Currency: $45,678.90
• Percentage: 4,567,890%
• Scientific: 4.56789E+04
• Spell-Out: Forty five thousand six ...

23. Locale Specific Formats
• 45 678,90
• ¥456.78

24. Number Tips
• Avoid intValue
• Use NSNumberFormatter
• Unit conversion is important

25. Dates

26. Dates
• One of the most messed up concepts
• NSDate is a wrapped NSTimeInterval
• Simply a point in time

27. Why Are Dates Hard?
• Time Zones
• Leap Years
• Leap Seconds
• Date Math
• Calendar Conversion

28. Calendars
• Gregorian
• Islamic
• Hindu
• Hebrew
• and on and on

29. Don’t Assume
• Date formats / Input masks
• Length of days/weeks/months
• Gregorian
• Location hasn’t changed since launch
(timezones!)

30. Do Assume
• API calls with date formats
• Internally stored dates
• NSDate has no timezone

31. Images

32. Images
• Use Core Graphics to draw text
• No text on launch images
• Keep cultural references in mind

33. Cultural Images

34. Layouts

35. Layouts
• Words can be different lengths in
another language
• Mac OS X has autolayouts
• iOS may “some day” have autolayout
• [UIBarButtonItem possibleTitles]

36. ibtool
• Separate NIBs for each locale
• Don’t make layout changes in localespecific NIB!
• Programmatically move items
• Wait until iOS 6...

37. Translation

38. Process
• Collect Strings files/resources
• Send to translators
• Incorporate new strings
• Test, test, test, test!

39. translate.google.com

40. Greenwich

41. Greenwich
• Mac & iOS Apps!
• iOS requires a Mac & Bonjour
• http://github.com/fadingred/
Greenwich

42. Services
• gengo - http://gengo.com
• Applingua - http://applingua.com
• Amazon Mechanical Turk

43. Resources

44. Apple Developer Library
• Internationalization Programming
Topics
• International Mountains (Sample
Code)

45. WWDC Videos
• 2011 - 131 - Getting Your Apps Ready
for China and Other Hot Markets
• 2012 - 244 - Internationalization Tips
and Tricks

46. Demo

47. Questions?