In the first release of Windows Phone 7 there was support for a few languages (English (US and UK), French, German, Italian, and Spanish.) With the Mango update Microsoft is adding 17 more languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Swedish.
As I blogged earlier about the Windows Phone 7 directions button missing and how to get your directions button back. This feature is with Mango updated with support in 19 countries. As you can see in below list of features and in which language it is supported, the “Local search results” or “Scout” as it is called either, will only be available (for now) in the Windows Phone 7 “Launch” countries. Note that if you set your browser & search language to a non supported language than the “Scout” button will disappear from the Bing Maps menu bar.
<= That’s the one you’re missing if you are setting the Browser & Search language to a non Local search results country.
- Bing search (accessed from the phone’s hardware Search button) is available in 33 countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and the United States. (Elsewhere, handset and mobile operators can configure the hardware search button to a locally-relevant search site).
- Local search results show up in 6 countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, United Kingdom, and the United States.
- Maps is supported in 19 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States.
- Voice-to-text and Voice-to-dial is available in 6 countries: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, and the Unites States.
- Voice search is supported in 4 countries: France, Germany, United Kingdom, and the United States.
One nice thing to mention about the language and region settings is that there are a lot of settings which in Mango don’t require your device to be restarted, but can be applied instant. That makes it easier to play around with these settings and find your own favorite.
Language support source:
