i-Mate Arabic Smartphone: TAO CABALLERO!

[Guest The PocketTV Team]

"TAO CABALLERO" :) is the secret internal name of the new arabic i-Mate Smartphone. This strange name is returned by the SPI_GETOEMINFO KernelIOControl routine.

By the way, some apparently knowlegeable source at Microsoft (that I will keep anonymous) told me (I quote):

"Smartphone currently doesn't support Arabic and, unlike other platforms,

Smartphone is tightly optimized and we have mechanisms to prevent adding low-level components (as it would cause instabilities and degrade

performance)."

"There should be no way for a developer to install the [arabic font support]

you mention as they should not be able to get a digital signature for

such an application (because it violates our guidelines), and fonts in

ROM can't be replaced. As for ROMs, there is no way that a product like

that can be in ROM, as the logo certification would stop any such

application"

That's pretty funny, I think we should tell the i-Mate people that it is impossible to support arabic in a Smartphone :o

And the arabic Smartphone version has obvious been developed in partnership with Microsoft, if you read this article:

http://www.itp.net/news/104834436617257.htm

[Guest Coucou]

Er, I've just clicked on that link you provided and I can't see any pictures on the site showing the phone with arabic font on the screen. Is it possible it's meant to work in the middle east but use english text, or do you have any screenshots with arabic text on?

[Guest The PocketTV Team]

Er, I've just clicked on that link you provided and I can't see any pictures on the site showing the phone with arabic font on the screen. Is it possible it's meant to work in the middle east but use english text, or do you have any screenshots with arabic text on?

Here:

http://www.imate.com/imate/imate_arabic.asp

You can see a photo of the arabic smartphone keyboard.

Once you have re-flashed the i-Mate with the new ROM image they provide, you can use arabic:

"You can now configure your i -Mate™ Smartphone to use either English with Arabic support, or full Arabic. This is done by navigating to Settings, then to Regional Settings (follow the pictorial steps 1 to 7 above). You will need to set both the Language and Locale to support Arabic. You can revert the language back to English in these settings as well. Once you have made these changes power off your i -Mate™ Smartphone in order for them to take effect."

There is a screenshot of PocketTV (english version) running on the arabic i-Mate here:

http://smartphone.modaco.com/viewtopic.php?t=88413

You can see some arabic text in the NavBar, on the right.

[Guest acent]

Who can post arabic UpgradeB.zip to forum? i have no a I-Mate IMEI to downlaod form website.

[Guest UAE]

"Smartphone currently doesn't support Arabic and, unlike other platforms,  

Smartphone is tightly optimized and we have mechanisms to prevent adding low-level components (as it would cause instabilities and degrade  

performance)."  

very nice :)

and here is some screenshot of my Arabic I-mate

but the Upgrade in the i-mate site only work fine with arabic smartphone keyboard , and the font used in the arabic i-mate is tahoma .

Who can post arabic UpgradeB.zip to forum? i have no a I-Mate IMEI to downlaod form website.  

Arabic Upgrade

[Guest The PocketTV Team]

Since the arabic update is a ROM upgrade, it will probably only work with Smartphones that have the exact same hardware as the iMate.

[Guest shisho]

hi, anyone try it on SPV "canary" phone, and what is the limitation for it if it is not possible???

[Guest Crispy]

hi, anyone try it on SPV "canary" phone, and what is the limitation for it if it is not possible???

Yes, the rom works fine on the standard SPV! ... Haven't tried the arabic update thou ...