Apple's Snow Leopard OS update released today, and with it a slew of reviews. I've read two complete reviews and a summary of four others at Apple Insider and have yet to see mention of a small but innovative feature that will be of interest to Japanese language students. The new feature allows you to use a macbook's multi-touch trackpad to write kanji that appear on the screen as you write them. It then lists suggestions for the current character and subsequent ones that frequently pair with it. While this might not be THE reason to upgrade, it is the type of cool feature that people expect from Apple and that will get lethargic students like me practicing their writing again.
The Chinese character input feature is explained in greater detail at Apple's website (Edit: Link removed--no longer available).
I just received my copy of Snow Leopard in the mail today. As you might have guessed, the first feature I tried was the Chinese Character input. Much to my chagrin, it only works with the Simplified or Traditional Chinese input activated. This makes it useful for writing practice, but inconvenient if writing a letter in Japanese. Hopefully Apple will migrate this feature over to Japanese input as well.
ReplyDeleteThe interface isn't explained well in the help section, but once you figure it out, it is very easy to use. As you start to draw the strokes on the trackpad, four suggestions appear on the right hand side. If you see the one you want, you just push the corresponding part on the trackpad that you see on the screen. After you have selected the character, it will suggest four more characters that make common compounds. For example, after selecting big 大, the first suggestion was study 学, so you could write university 大学 without drawing the brushstrokes with your finger. In case you're wondering, the next option was university student 大学生. Will people familiar with the keyboard input method prefer this new option? I doubt that they will find it faster, but it sure is fun.