This short tutorial is going to teach you how to enable Farsi Keyboard in iOS 5.1, but without jailbreaking your iOS device. This tutorial is based on Mac OS X environment, the softwares you’ll need to use are all free, available on the Internet and works on Mac OS X Lion. The whole process is going to take you 5~60 minutes, depends on your backup file size (I have an 800mb backup file folder and it took me 30 minutes).
Softwares you’ll need to use later: iTunes, JuicePhone, TextWrangler, JPHashChecker. These softwares are all free.
Step 1. First you need to use iTunes to create a backup file for your iOS device. You can do so by right clicking the device name from iTunes sidebar and choose “Back up".
Step 2. Get a copy of JuicePhone, then create a backup mirror with it. JuicePhone is a free application that capable of reading iOS device backups, and works on Mac OS X Lion.
Step 3. Open the backup mirror you just made, find Home/Library/Preferences/GlobalPreferences.plist , open it with a decent text editor, TextEdit or TextWrangler, whatever.
Step 4. Find
<key>AppleKeyboards</key>
<array>
add the following code after the <array> line.
<string>fa@hw=Persian;sw=Persian</string>
something like this.
Step 4-a. Additionally, if you want to activate the Farsi/Iran region format, find this line
<key>AppleLocale</key>
<string>xx_XX</string>
Then change it into
<key>AppleLocale</key>
<string>fa</string>
Step 5. Save your edited plist file.
Step 6. Get a copy of JPHashChecker, use it to fix your backup file checksum, this is also a free application and works on Mac OS X Lion. Use it to open a backup file folder (not the mirrored one), click verify, then click save copy, replace the old Manifest.mbdb file.
Step 7. Restore your iOS device with iTunes, by right clicking the device name from iTunes sidebar, choose “Restore from Backup…"
Step 8. Wait until the restoration process is completed. Reboot your iOS device then you should see the Farsi Keyboard (and Farsi/Iran region format) is activated. And, that’s it.
If you have a jailbroken iOS device, just simply edit /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist as step 4 and step 4-a stated, save it then relaunch the Springboard and all is done.
I’m an English-Chinese freelance translator based in Guangzhou, P.R.China. Although I don’t actually speak Farsi language right now, but I’m learning it.
