As most of you are hopefully aware, we've launched both Android and iOS apps this year. One recurring subject that's come up each time I talk to another big-scale mobile developer or person in the know is localization.
Most big applications are localized, meaning if you view them in a different locale or in a different country, all the text in them is in a different language. The Stack Exchange sites are for the most part, not. However, it's something we're actively working on with pt.so and whatever other localized sites are later down the pipeline.
Each time someone's asked me how we handle localization for text in our apps, that's been my response. "Well our sites aren't localized so it doesn't make much sense to localize the app". If I was reading questions & answers in English and all the UI was in my other language, it would be a huge context switch and a burden. And since the app is for the entire network, not just on a site by site basis, we can't simply localize only pt.so's view in the app and leave everything else in english, so no localization at all made the most sense.
However, I've realized that I've never asked anyone else this and just decided upon it on my self. So, my question is:
- For those of you that use pt.so, would you prefer if the entire Android or iOS apps were in Portuguese?
- For those of you that use the specific english sites, would you prefer if the entire Android or iOS app were in your phone's set language? (E.g. French if you live in France or have manually set your phone to French)
- Is it fine to leave the apps as they are, with English text everywhere? We get the reverse of the situation I described earlier here when we do this and someone looks at a question on a site where all text are in a different language.
