Question

Can I set my keyboard default to be the Arabic keyboard programmatically?
I don’t want a user of my application to have to manually go to Settings > Keyboard > Arabic.

I want to have the Arabic keyboard as the default within my iPhone application, is this doable?

Answer 1

Apple’s documentation on Managing the Keyboard states:

Keyboards and Input Methods

Whenever the user taps in an object capable of accepting text input,
the object asks the system to display an appropriate keyboard.
Depending on the needs of your program and the user’s preferred
language, the system might display one of several different keyboards.
Although your application cannot control the user’s preferred language
(and thus the keyboard’s input method), it can control attributes of
the keyboard that indicate its intended use, such as the configuration
of any special keys and its behaviors.

…

To facilitate the language preferences of different users, iOS also
supports different input methods and keyboard layouts for different
languages, some of which are shown in Figure 4-2. The input method and
layout for the keyboard is determined by the user’s language
preferences. Input for some of these keyboards takes place in multiple
stages.

So the short answer is No, you cannot bring up a specific language in the keyboard programmatically.