Xperia Japanese Keyboard not showing Hiragana in QWERTY

[nightflyer]

I have just upgraded from an Xperia using Android 5.1.1 to XZ (F8332), running on 7.0. I encounter a problem using the Xperia Japanese Keyboard.

With the keyboard active, I can toggle between Kana - alpha - numeric keyboards. However, hiragana symbols are ONLY displayed when I switch the keyboard to 9 key layout. If I switch back to the full keyboard layout, instead of showing all hiragana characters (as it used to be), it shows latin characters no matter whether in Kana or alpha mode.

Is there some setting I may have overlooked? Or is this a general problem?

[Qatrium]

Hello @nightflyer and welcome to the community!

Sadly, I have no experience or knowledge with Japanese characters so I'll not be able to test that with you. But I'll try to get some more info about it.

[Emir1]

Hi @nightflyer,

I checked in different Xperia devices running different Android versions (among those 5.1 as you mentioned, 7.0 and 6.0) but I can't make it so that Hiragana characters are visible in the QWERTY layout for Kana. I was also unable to find any setting which allows this, so I would say that what you're experiencing is normal for the Xperia Japanese keyboard. 

Could you specify which exact Xperia you had, so that I could also double check with that specific model? In addition just so that I understand what you mean, you want it to look like this?


Looking forward to hear from you!  

[nightflyer]

Hi, @Emir,

Thanks for looking into this issue. I have been using a C6833, running Android 5.1.1. I always had the Japanese keyboard as active keyboard, I set the phone language to German. This is how the Japanese keyboard looked like:

Xperia Japanese Keyboard, Kana mode

When I used to toggle by pressing the key on the bottom left hand corner, the layout used to turn alphanumeric:

In alpha mode

The strange thing is that using Xperia Japanese Keyboard on Xperia XZ, toggling both modes gives latin characters...

Does this help for you to be able to further investigate?

Thank you!

[RJX]

You're not going to find the kana keyboard. The C6833 had "POBox Touch" which is what the Xperia Japanese keyboard is called if you set your phone language to Japanese. Starting with the Xperia Z2, Sony began to use "POBox Plus" which is what is on the Xperia XZ. The kana input is not popular so they removed it. Nearly everybody in Japan uses the flick input since it's more intuitive.

[Emir1]

Hi @nightflyer, I can confirm that the layout is available in an Xperia Z Ultra under the name Gojūon, but I am afraid that it is not available in the Xperia Japanese keyboard available in Xperia XZ. 

I can not confirm if it is as @RJX wrote, but I will request information regarding this internally and write you back if I find out more! Nonetheless, I will forward this internally as user feedback on your behalf.

[RJX]

Actually the gojuon keyboard in "POBox Plus" seems to only available for tablets. 

The user guide for the keyboard is in the following link.

http://content.sonymobile.jp/ad/menu/poboxplus/index.php

It's in Japanese only though.

[nightflyer]

@Emir, @Rjx,

Thank you very much for your detailed help. For a foreigner learning Japanese it is a pity if indeed the full size Hiragana keyboard layout is no longer available. I would have thought that maintaining that capability would not have involved too much effort.

I will try to learn the "flick" input method, even though right now it is a setback for me writing Japanese.

Should you be able to find out any additional details on how to potentially "switch this feature back on", please let me know.

Thank you!

[Emir1]

@nightflyer Don't worry, I'll be sure to update you as soon as I get some information regarding the layout. Feel free to Kudo and accept the post as solution so that other users wondering the same can find the current status of the concern!  

[Emir1 · Accepted solution]

Hey guys, I have received some information which confirms a lot of what @RJX was mentioning.

The Gojūon layout of POBox Touch is available for Xperia devices with POBox Touch (earlier version of the Xperia Japanese keyboard). It has been released for the global models, but I'm afraid that I do not have information regarding the target global models.

However, I do have a list of Japanese models which have POBox Touch where Xperia Z Ultra is one of the models, but I'm afraid that Xperia XZ is not. As @RJX wrote, I can't see any Xperia device in the compatibility list past Xperia Z2 for POBox Touch.

The Gojūon layout of POBox Plus (later version of Xperia Japanese keyboard) is available only on the following Xperia tablets: Xperia Z2 Tablet, Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact and Xperia Z4 Tablet.