The Karnataka government has reached out to Tim Cook, chief executive oftechnology major Apple Inc, asking him to adopt locally built keyboard layouts and fonts for Kannada on its flagship software iOS. The move is consistent with India’s push to get the world’s most valuable company to comply with local standards if it wants to tap the country’s massive customer base.
India has been engaged with Apple to adopt the biometric standards for Aadhaar authentication on its flagship iPhone. It also has been asking to host a ‘do not disturb’ app on its app store, which will allow users to report spam calls and text messages to the telecom regulator, but with little success.
This prompted the country’s telecom regulator to accuse Apple of digital colonisation. Apple has so far refrained from commenting publicly, and is waiting as it looks to India as a large market, which Cook says has lot of similarities to where China was several years ago.
On Monday, the Karnataka Development Authority (KDA), a state body to promote Kannada, the local language, wrote a letter to Cook to localise mac OS and iOS in the state language.
The chairman of the KDA S G Siddaramaiah wrote that this would help native Kannada users to use Apple products and help the company to grow its market in the state. It also asked Apple to allow its personal assistant Siri in Kannada.
India is attempting to mirror China’s strategy of pushing companies to adopt local standards if they want to increase market access here. The government has already mandated that only phones that offer local language support can be sold in India from October.
By Baishakhi Dutta
