Hi,

I want to buy the iPad 2 for a friend in the U.S., and bringing it as a gift to my friend in China as there has been no launch date set for China yet. I never owned an iPad before, and was just wondering whether it can be set to be used in the Chinese language with Chinese language typing support. And also, will the apps be in Chinese too?

Also, anyone know based on Apple's launch date history, how long does it take for it to be launched in the Chinese or comparable market. I will be going to China at the end of April and if it comes out in China by then, then I would of course just buy it in China as it would be more compatible.

The iPad display language, as well as the keyboard can be set to Chinese. For a list of all supported languages, take a look at this site and scroll down to 'language'
http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/

Regarding apps, if you buy Chinese apps, they will be Chinese, but English apps will stay English. The apps don't get translated.

As to when the iPad will be released in china, hopefully someone else will be able to answer that question.

thanks for the quick reply.

Apple hasn't announce a release date for China. Until then it is just speculation, and I haven't heard anyone speculating. They probably won't get too wild on those rumors until after the launch in Europe.

just did some research, and there was a 5 month lag time between the iPad 1 release in the U.S., and China. I will go with buying in the U.S. then. Thanks again!

There's been support for Simplified &Traditional Chinese and many input methods including handwriting in iOS for years. I've been using Chinese on my iPhone for at least 2 years and it works well on my iPad2 as well. Apps are only in whatever language they were written it, no multi-lingual localization.

真的不錯！entered from my iPad 2

iPad 2 just released in Hong Kong. Will be released in China on 6 May 2011.