This iPhone screen shot shows the user's calendar.

By T. Ilihia Gionson / Ka Wai Ola Loa

There are iPhones all over Hawai'i. You may even be reading Ka Wai Ola Loa on one. And now thanks to some tweaks in the recently released iPhone 3.0 software, typing 'ōlelo Hawai'i with proper 'okina and kahakō is quick and easy.

This new development is in addition to iPhone's (and iPod Touch's) ability to display 'ōlelo Hawai'i text, present since Apple put out the first iPhone, and the ability to display the days of the week and such ma ka 'ōlelo Hawai'i systemwide.

Pehea 'o Hilo?

The importance of having this kind of support for our 'ōlelo built-in to the software of such a popular product cannot be understated, said Keola Donaghy, a University of Hawai'i at Hilo professor who has been working on getting 'ōlelo Hawai'i seamlessly on computers since the early 1990s.

"Apple has been supporting 'ōlelo Hawai'i since 1994," Donaghy said, when the company donated equipment and offered support to Hale Kuamo'o, the Hawaiian language center at UH Hilo. Apple's support assisted in the development of Leokī, a e-mail and communications suite all in 'ōlelo Hawai'i that is still used by Hawaiian speakers nationwide, and Kualono, the Hale Kuamo'o's website that pioneered the techniques of offering a website in 'ōlelo Hawai'i, English, or both.

To type kahakō on a vowel, press and hold on the vowel while typing. A bubble will pop up, and that letter with a kahakō will be among the options.

To type an 'okina, press and hold on the apostrophe, and a bubble will pop up and the 'okina will be among the options.

In 2002, Apple added the Hawaiian keyboard layout, Hawaiian language dates, and other support to their mainstream operating system, Mac OS X. Users today can type 'ōlelo Hawai'i out of the box. Previous to this, users had to install special software and special fonts to type and view 'okina and kahakō successfully. Sorry, Windows users – you still need to install the special software.

"That used to be a big barrier for users - installing custom software and perhaps later having to upgrade it. Now you can just buy a Macintosh computer or iPhone and the support is included. I can't stress how big a deal that is," Donaghy said. "Hawai'i is such a small market that it doesn't make a lot of sense economically for Apple to support Hawaiian language they way that they have, but they continue to bless us by adding functionality that assists in our efforts to take the language into the future."

To enable 'ōlelo Hawai'i for the dates and days of the week, go to Settings > General > International > Region Format and select Hawaiian (United States) from the list.