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I'm trying to use Arabic description and metadata for my app. In iTunes connect it states that these data must be in English, so I did put them in English. Then i found the localization feature but found it doesn't support Arabic language.

However I found many apps that use Arabic in their names, meta data and description in the Saudi Arabia app store. I wonder how to do that?

Ali
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    It blows my mind that in March 2017 Apple _still_ don't allow itunes listings to be localised to Arabic. – Stevie Mar 15 '17 at 10:30

4 Answers4

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They just put their arabic description under 'English'. ITC says that it has to be in English, but I have 2 applications in the App Store with all the information in Polish.

Just put this info in Arabic, Apple will not reject your app because of that.

akashivskyy
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  • Thank you so much. You read my mind. I was afraid they may reject it if i used Arabic instead of English there. – Ali Aug 17 '11 at 10:30
  • Please don't do this -- use the standard localization infrastructure provided by Apple. See my answer below. – memmons Aug 17 '11 at 16:53
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    @Answerbot The problem is that the standard localization infrastructure in iTC does not support Arabic (it does however support it in iOS itself, which makes it all the more frustrating: you can't show on iTC that your app supports Arabic). – KPM Aug 16 '12 at 18:26
  • What if I add two English languages Eng US and Eng UK and add Arabic description in English UK section? – Idrees Ashraf May 25 '16 at 06:21
  • @IdreesAshraf Then only users in UK will see Arabic description, but I recommend against it because the rest of the world will see English anyway. – akashivskyy May 25 '16 at 06:37
  • what about arabic app name and screenshots? i think apple have huge problem there – mohammad alabid Oct 07 '17 at 20:33
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Unfortunately, Apple keeps a weirdly different list of languages for the App Store and for the iOS app itself. You can localize your app into Arabic, but the iTunes description cannot be. The best method is to paste it into the English description and use it for all languages.

You can see a complete language list for iOS and the App Store, which explains which languages are available on each, here:

http://www.ibabbleon.com/iOS-Language-Codes-ISO-639.html

Arabic is the last on that list, marked as Yes for iOS, and No for App Store.

Localizer
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    What do we do if we want to localize both a foreign language (that is not showing up) and English? How can we do both simultaneously? – Elad Nava Nov 20 '14 at 22:27
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The Arabic language has been added to App Store Connect. enter image description here

HaiderSahib
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The answers works great, but what if my app is bilingual (english, arabic), what do you think is the best thing to do? I think the best solution is to set the arabic language instead of any other language except for english, and set it as a primary language.

WaleedAmmari
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  • If you have a new question, please ask it by clicking the [Ask Question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/ask) button. Include a link to this question if it helps provide context. – greg-449 May 03 '15 at 09:41
  • I have an app that does the same thing (support both Arabic and English). In the app description I have both languages - first Arabic (since that is my main target group) then in English just below. – Nikolaj Simonsen Oct 30 '15 at 09:12