Apple Unveils Language Tool for Developers : Technology: WorldScript promises to simplify the development of software for dozens of languages.
Apple Computer, Inc. went multilingual Monday with the introduction of software to let machines use dozens of languages, from complicated Arabic and Japanese to romantic French and Italian.
Apple Chairman and Chief Executive John Sculley announced WorldScript at the company’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference, a weeklong gathering of more than 4,000 high-tech engineers and executives from 30-plus countries.
“It’s the first global-ready release of software,” Sculley told the developers. “You’ll now have access to global markets.”
WorldScript will become available when Apple upgrades its Macintosh System 7 operating system this fall. It promises to simplify the development of software in other languages, allowing software developers to more quickly develop and localize programs for countries that use non-Roman alphabet languages.
The operating system is an underlying base of software that controls a personal computer, while programs are the working applications people use.
A spreadsheet that lets someone balance their books with the Roman alphabet used primarily in Western languages, for example, could be converted by developers using WorldScript to a program that would use the artistic strokes of Arabic or Hebrew. WorldScript has 31 languages, according to Apple.
“With the growing importance of doing business on a global scale, multi-language computing capabilities are imperative,” said Ian Diery, president of Apple Pacific, which serves Asian nations. Previously, he said, converting programs into other languages was time-consuming.
The developers conference, which has grown over the past decade from a handful of program writers, had an international flavor. Signs posted in exhibit halls were in several languages, and Monday’s introduction by Sculley and other Apple executives included graphics that showed a swirling globe transformed into the company’s logo--a rainbow-colored Apple.
Lee Chubb, a developer with Terrapin Software in Connecticut, said he and others attended Apple’s annual meeting to learn about innovations. After Apple invents a new technology or gadget--from its recent Powerbook laptop computer to its upcoming Personal Digital Assistant communications devices--developers must write programs so people can use machines for tasks.
“It’s very hard to keep up these days,” Chubb said. “Apple is still a relatively small shop, but they just keep pumping out the technology.”
During the next couple of years, Sculley told the developers that the Cupertino-based company would push multimedia technology to combine text with video, sound and graphics and telecommunications in a new generation of machines.
