Of the three major platforms available for those who enjoy using tablets and telephones for online engagement, Android has been the most disappointing with regard to classical Greek. The following four issue threads have been opened on Android and Nexus forums on Google to bring the issue to the attention of developers:
• Android Issues (26037): Font glyphs and text rendering: polytonic Greek characters
• Android Issues (3167): Font glyphs and text rendering: international pronunciation alphabet (IPA) characters
• Android Issues (53154): Fonts don't support New Testament or Classical Greek (Polytonic Greek)
• Nexus Forum: Polytonic fonts not displaying
It looks like it might be possible that the newest version of Android (4.3) released corrected fonts, if I understand the last message in this thread correctly. My latest phone operates on 4.0.4, so I don’t know how the new fonts support anything. Has Android indeed taken a step to fix this issue? Can anyone confirm that 4.3 displays it correctly? I’ll try to find out and let you know.
ἔρρωσθε,
Ἰάσων τοῦ Ἰωάννου
P.S. I just downloaded and installed the Android 4.3 version of the Roboto Regular to my Windows tablet and opened it up with the character map to check the font’s layout. No, it does not have the extended Greek characters. The user in that thread didn’t state what he did to get the Greek viewable on his device. It is also viewable on my device, running 4.0.4, but I had to root the phone and replace the Roboto fonts to get it to display.
• Android Issues (26037): Font glyphs and text rendering: polytonic Greek characters
• Android Issues (3167): Font glyphs and text rendering: international pronunciation alphabet (IPA) characters
• Android Issues (53154): Fonts don't support New Testament or Classical Greek (Polytonic Greek)
• Nexus Forum: Polytonic fonts not displaying
It looks like it might be possible that the newest version of Android (4.3) released corrected fonts, if I understand the last message in this thread correctly. My latest phone operates on 4.0.4, so I don’t know how the new fonts support anything. Has Android indeed taken a step to fix this issue? Can anyone confirm that 4.3 displays it correctly? I’ll try to find out and let you know.
ἔρρωσθε,
Ἰάσων τοῦ Ἰωάννου
P.S. I just downloaded and installed the Android 4.3 version of the Roboto Regular to my Windows tablet and opened it up with the character map to check the font’s layout. No, it does not have the extended Greek characters. The user in that thread didn’t state what he did to get the Greek viewable on his device. It is also viewable on my device, running 4.0.4, but I had to root the phone and replace the Roboto fonts to get it to display.
Check the last two posts in this link: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=26037
ReplyDeleteThanks for the update. :)
ReplyDeleteAs regards this, I've essentially given up on the hoping for a simple fix from Android. I bought a Surface RT tablet over a year ago, and it supports everything. I think Android's lack of interest in the multitude of posts that should have brought this to their attention (no response at all, as far as I can tell) is enough to drive me away. My next phone will be a Windows phone. At least Windows and Apple understand that classicists exist.
ReplyDeletecheck out this app:
ReplyDeletehttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.skin1980.ancientgreekkeyboard