It really depends on the major, my girlfriend is studying architecture and in both universities where she studied (one for undergrad, one for master, phd), the majority of the department’s computer were macs (around 80 to 90 %)….

And the two architect companies she worked for only used macs…..

It could maybe be possible to hack the dictionary.app to add the cedict japanese dictionary inside… Should check that up….

No. Apple doesn’t offer spelling dicts for all languages covered. There are alternative open source solutions (cocoaspell), but try explaining that to Mom when she is considering switching to the Mac.

According to this page, there has been Japanese support on the Mac since 1986 (through Kanji Talk). See also this page:

Spindler’s biggest triumph while he headed Apple Europe was KanjiTalk and the explosive growth of the Macintosh in Japan. The Japanese had been slow to adopt the personal computer because of their inability to work with Japanese characters (called Kanji). Users had to type with a Latin alphabet, spelling words phonetically and losing meaning with confusing homonyms.

Spindler recognized that the Macintosh would be more than capable enough to display and process Kanji characters. Spindler had Apple Japan buy rights to a Kanji font system and implement it on the Mac 512K. The fonts were supplemented with a sophisticated entry system that used word prediction to guess the meaning of words and change Latin spellings into true Kanji. The software was called KanjiTalk, and t made Apple one of only two computer companies selling Kanji-aware computers in Japan.

This accords with everything else I have heard, and would explain the Mac’s popularity in Japan. It’s true that there aren’t huge numbers in universities (although when I was at Sophia in Tokyo, they had some), but I think if you look elsewhere…

Gareth

Cepstral has filled the niche and has kindly decided not to price their voices too high (which they probably could’ve done easily, as they were the only ones for a while). Now Apple still doesn’t really provide what it used to provide, but at least they make it easier for third parties to plug their products in (Cepstral still has lots of issues working correctly in some cases).

As for the dictionary this is one of those cases where adding new functionality backfires. The dictionary included in OSX is licensed, including by default a recognised dictionary for every possible language is probably not cost-effective for Apple (as it’s unlikely a user would use more than one any given time;as it is a lot of users don’t even use the one included). An option would be to use open-source dictionaries, but there aren’t many of these and they’re not really reliable yet.

As for spelling Apple includes, to my knowledge, dictionaries for all languages it covers and there are open source alternatives for these as well that function as well and pervasive (or better) than Apple’s.

About international support being better on a Mac:
From my own personal recollection and others’ personal experiences, the consensus has been that getting full Japanese language support on a Mac took longer than it did with Windows. Looking at anything for Japanese text support on Mac or Windows pre-1998 is scary for me anyway…Do you have any info on that? Maybe I can throw it into conversation one day with a Windows-fan friend of mine…ha.

Artistic types are, I agree, drawn to Mac. It just makes sense. But of all the universities and schools I went to in Japan, I didn’t notice any with Macs (not to say they are not there, but universities have strict budgets and many were still running Win98 because of the need of its software).
So that’s why I definitely think it’s a great idea to continue making better applications with other languages (Japanese in particular for this case), since as you say, Japan is the 2nd largest Apple market. :) Take a look at this, by the way: http://www.apple.com/jp/startmac/girlsilife/

Oh, and the kanji readings. JEDict is a good place! I know it. But I wonder if there is a plug-in for Shiira, Camino, or Safari, etc. for select and control/right-clicking that will display the onyomi and kunyomi. I recall seeing something like that on Windows, but it was buggy. The widget is a good idea, in which case I know a good Japanese widget from the Apple Japan website–but that’d involve Dashboard…oh well, I guess nothing is instantaneous. :)

Tek,
It’s worth pointing out that Japan is Apple’s biggest market outside of the USA. That’s why they got the first Apple Store outside the USA. There is a lot of Sony bullshit sold, but to those arty types (the artists, the progressive music types, the designers – I think you know the types I mean, and there are a fair few in Japan), the Mac remains king. Part of this is surely historical: international (and so Japanese) support has traditionally been much better on the Mac, facilitated by the GUI, etc.

Toke,
Agreed that it would be nice to have some other dictionaries, but as Jules suggests, there are licencing costs. It may not yet be justifiable. And if there’s no Danish spelling dictionary, it’ll be a long time before you see a Danish reference dictionary (i.e. like Dictionary.app) shipping with Mac OS X. User numbers are the key thing here.

Jules,
As I alluded to in my post, Apple may well not be providing multilingual TTS. Rather, they are providing a framework which third parties can use to develop TTS engines for other languages. Like, say, Japanese.

And even if they were engaging in such development, spelling dictionaries, reference dictionaries (i.e. Dictionary.app) and TTS dictionaries are surely three completely different things.

I know there would be a cost in licensing a dictionary for each language, but I’m sure it would be worthwhile. If it is that bad, just make it so you can only install one ‘core’ dictionary English.

I’m guessing if they are doing text-to-speech then they will need multi-lingual dictionaries too.

Thus there is no danish spelling option in the default spelling engine, no Summary for danish text, no Danish lookup in the Dictionary application, etc.. Same goes for many other european languages, no to speak of the languages of the rest of the world.

So, even though text-to-voice and vice versa sounds really cool, I would think this affects many more users than those few reading-impaired mac users benefitting from the voice of Alex…

“If only Apple can capitalize on their appearance and user experience with a Japanese audience…,” is what I used to think. But -especially- now since Boot Camp, many more Japanese might be willing to look towards Mac for computing. And the more applications that Apple can offer to compete with the WinXP experience, the better!

This is one more thing that will benefit Apple’s appearance. In over six different television shows in 2006, Apple computers or iPods have appeared in Japanese prime time television shows (“dramas”). Most people who know nothing about computers are actually drawn to a Mac (brand-name appeal, good-looking, modern), but because many popular social networking websites limit their experience to Internet Explorer only, many people are steered into purchasing a PC. I can only assume the same would be for those who had special needs would occur.

Yes, this is actually VERY good news. VoiceOver in Japanese “is cool” as you say :D.
And I’ll be glad when I don’t know how to pronounce a kanji reading (without loading up, say, Microsoft Word) and hear it read to me instead. :) I hope they use a woman’s voice, though. A woman’s Japanese is clearer in narration to me.