STC to introduce Middle East's first Android-powered phone in English and Arabic

HTC Corporation, a global specialist in mobile phone innovation and design, has announced that Saudi telecom service provider STC will be the first operator in the Middle East to introduce the region’s first Android-powered phone HTC Magic to Saudi customers.

The introduction of the HTC Magic in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the result of a successful relationship between STC and HTC.

STC, the largest telecommunication provider in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, covers an area of two million square kilometers, providing coverage to more than 100,000 kilometers of highways and 98% of inhabitant areas across Saudi Arabia. It has a larger customer base than any other provider in the Middle East – more than 19 million GSM, four million land line and one million DSL customers.

To date, STC has won telecom licenses in Kuwait and Bahrain and acquired shares in companies in Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and South Africa and is continuing to develop its outreach to become a global service provider.

source

Arabic Ref بالعربية

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My comments:

This is the only “official” announcement of an intention in supporting Arabic in android.. Since Google and the Android Team have no intention in Adding Arabic to the System not in 1.6 nor 2.0 ( ie not in the near future)

as Cupcake has been introduced we are facing more problems supporting Arabic, whenever a non-Arabic characters is introduced, the whole text will be messed up!! This is the biggest challange for those who are trying to work on Arabic for Android HERE

this is the only serious attempt to solve the problem… I am not even sure that www.parfield.com would work any more since it was built long ago before SDK 1.0!!

I have contacted the Android team asking only for adding an Arabic FONT, which they refused to do, due to the large size of Arabic fonts on the system… so please stop the false hopes regarding a solution coming from Google unless HTC would push them to do so…

people are buying new Magic and Dream devices based on these rumors, so be aware

We shall wait for more clarification from STC regarding this issue, and hopefully (inshAllah) it would be soon

Salaam

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ملاحظات

حتى الان لايوجد اي اعلان رسمي عن دعم اللغة العربية على اندرويد سوى هذا الخبر…

من خلال متابعتي للموضوع فان جوجل او فريق موطوري اندرويد ليس لديهم نية دعم العربية حاليا لا الاصدار 1.6 ولا 2.0

ولا حتى اضافة خط اللغة العربية الى النظام والذي من دوره ان يسهل دعم اللغة!!!

ارجو الانتباه وعدم التسرع في شراء الجهاز بناء على هذه الاشاعات

الخبر الصحيح الوحيد حتى الان هو رغبة الاتصالات السعودية بتوفير اجهزة اندرويد..

لا اعلم من اين تخطط الاتصالات و اتش تي سي توفير التعريب ولكن امل ان يكون هذا قريبا

الى ذلك الحين كل عام وانتم بخير وعيد سعيد ان شاء الله

عبدالله