#TechBytes: 5 India-specific iOS 13 features you need to try
Soon after unveiling fancy new iPhones, Apple released iOS 13 with features like dark mode, Sign in with Apple, swipe-to-type, gesture-based undo/redo and more. The update is now being rolled out in India, and the interesting bit is, it offers much more than the popularized features. Case in point: Capabilities that have been specially designed for Indian iPhone users. Let's take a look.
Siri sounds Indian now
Among a series of updates for Siri, iOS 13 is bringing an Indian voice into the famous digital assistant. You can still pick the standard male or female tone, but the accent of English voice can be changed to Indian. To install the Indian Siri voice, head over to Settings > Siri & Search > Siri Voice.
More Indian languages supported in iOS 13 keyboard
With iOS 13, you'll get a keyboard supporting all of India's 22 official languages. Previously, only seven Indian languages were supported but Apple has now added 15 more, including Assamese, Bodo, Dogri, Kashmiri (Arabic, Devanagari), Konkani (Devanagari), Manipuri (Bangla, Meetei Mayek), Maithili, Nepali, Sanskrit, Santali (Devanagari, Ol Chiki), and Sindhi (Devanagari, Arabic). You can use them by adding a new keyboard from iOS settings.
You also get Hindi predictions in keyboard
In addition to more Indian languages, the keyboard of iOS 13 also brings Hindi predictions to upgrade your messaging experience. The keyboard had been supporting Hindi since iOS 12, but the capability was rarely used owing to the lack of predictions feature. Users had to type full words but iOS 13 changes that by showing complete word suggestions as you continue to type.
New India-specific system and document fonts
iOS 13 also brings four new system fonts and 30 document fonts for Indian users. The system fonts are for Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, and Odia, while document fonts are for Assamese, Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. There's also an improved boot setup that lets you add languages you speak to keyboard, dictation, and preferred languages.
No data limit for app downloads
Finally, Apple has also given an option to remove the 200MB mobile data download limit on the App Store. The restriction had been keeping Indian users from downloading the apps of their choice, even when 4G data isn't that costly. However, you can now remove it by heading over to Settings > iTunes & App Stores > App Downloads and selecting 'Always Allow'.
