Question

I am localizing my app for Denmark. I have the Localizable.Strings and the XIBs translated into Danish.

On iPhone a user can

1. Set the ‘Region Format’ to ‘Denmark’
   but keep the language ‘English’
2. Set the ‘Region Format’ to any English-speaking country but keep
   the language ‘Dansk’
3. Set the ‘Region Format’ to ‘Denmark’ and language ‘Dansk’

My question is: for any of the above settings should the app show the ‘Danish’ version (which for my App will mean all text in UI and the database to be in Danish.) or should the ‘Danish’ version only come when user sets the language to ‘Dansk’?

Answer 1

This is a great question.

The real issue it comes down to is, in Apple’s opinion, as they did it, does NSLocalizedString tend to favour the ‘Region Format’ or the ‘language’ setting?

I have never been able to find a clear answer on this, I just let NSLocalizedString decide.

(Purely FWIW, I think follow the “language” setting.)

It’s possible the following code snippets could help you.

// to ("usually") get the preferred language FROM THE SET WHICH we supplied in bundle
// [[[NSBundle mainBundle] preferredLocalizations] objectAtIndex:0]

// to ("often") get the preferred language REGARDLESS OF what we supplied
// [ [NSBundle preferredLocalizationsFromArray:[NSLocale ISOCountryCodes]] objectAtIndex:0]

// to ("fairly reliably") get the user's chosen language setting...
// [ [NSLocale preferredLanguages] objectAtIndex:0]

It may not help, but I hope it helps.