Samsung launches first Irish phone

It’s true apparently, Samsung are set to launch the first ever mobile phone which will have an Irish user interface. Good stuff! Still wouldn’t buy a Samsung but hopefully in the not too distant future we may see other mobile phone manufacturers follow suit. Press release below.

Samsung launches first Irish phone

The first ever mobile phone with Irish language menus will be available in Ireland in the summer. Samsung Electronics said today the Tocco phone has more than 44,000 words translated into the Irish language. Three translators, all with degrees in Irish, worked on the project, Samsung said. Country manager of Samsung Gary Twohig said the move was “a direct reflection of the increased popularity in Irish”. “While we won’t necessarily be launching this feature with every new phone, we will be adding it as a premium feature for key launches,” he said. It will be available in Ireland on July 1st.

Dermot Reidy
Vodafone.com

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4 Comments.

  1. That’s great news. Many in Wales who oopese independence or any legislation regarding language like to say “look at Ireland, their language is in a sorry state – do you want wales to be like that?”.
    It’s nonsense of course, although it does show that legislation alone will never achieve anything.

    What being an independent State does mewn though, is that all the big companies have a HQ in Ireland (even a European HQ in Google’s case) and this gives the Irish language more of a chance of being recognised, particularly if an influential member of staff is fluent/supportive to the language.

    Where the manufacturer has ignored smaller languages, clever user’s themsels have been hacking the iPhone into Catalan and TomTom into Basque.

    I own nither devices, so I’m not bitter at all that their not available in Welsh, oh no!

  2. Great idea.
    Rhys as regayd Cymru the thing is you folks have a great language movement but lack independence whereas we have 3/4 independence but lack the same vitality in our language movement. If you have a strong language movement then you can strenghtne identity and gain independence but a weakened language movement will have little impact in an independent state.

  3. I wouldn’t buy any item with the Samsung logo on it, even if this device could print euro notes itself :-)

  4. Jer … welcome to Raiméis!

    Antonio … well if it could print Euro notes I *might* reconsider my opinion but for the moment i’ll stick with my nokia :)