New Moto G smartphones from Motorola with full te reo interface

Technology / news

11th Apr 24, 3:33pm by Juha Saarinen

Motorola Moto G homescreen

A media release arrived about Motorola Mobility's new Moto G range, with the brand trying to stand out in the crowded market in a commendable way:

All three moto g devices also feature a groundbreaking new te ao Māori capability that offers a fully localised interface in te reo. This first of its kind innovation extends beyond the ability to use Māori characters, into a broader CLDR (Common Language Data Repository) offering, meaning the user can select Māori language right from set up.

That native language support for Aotearoa is to my mind pretty cool. Motorola said the capability is in partnership with UNESCO, and other makers should do it too.

There are three new Moto G phones being launched, the moto g04, moto g24 and moto g34 5g - and yes, Motorola used lower-case for the model names.

The te reo interface is selectable right at the start, from the set up screen. Who did the translation is yet to be revealed, but a spokesperson for Motorola Mobility said: "I can confirm that Motorola had 3 professional translators working on over 230k words."

We hope to get some of the sets in to try out at some point, but here are some screenshots of the interface for you, from the Android Settings:

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9 Comments

by jeremyr | 11th Apr 24, 4:40pm 1712810452

Motorola phones.....I am surprised they are still around. But they are, holding 2% market share. So, how many users will there be of this fantastic new functionality, I'm picking none to almost none. No wonder they lost 4.3 billion last year, focusing on functions that no one will use does not increase sales.

by tis i | 11th Apr 24, 6:24pm 1712816653

Pretty mean spirited of you. For those that want to use it it’s probably a pretty cool feature.

by jeremyr | 11th Apr 24, 7:00pm 1712818829

Maybe it is. But…spending shareholder money on sone issues doesn’t get you very far. Just look at newshub. Another feature no one wants.

by Bully Hayes | 11th Apr 24, 5:43pm 1712814212

thank God for that

by Cheetahlegs66 | 11th Apr 24, 7:13pm 1712819596

Thought: as a gimmick could you offer really ‘obscure’ languages eg Nahuatl, Assyrian, Gaelic.

Use the feature to message Mum in some proto Indo Euro Lingua then get the translate function running?

Hoka Hei

by wingman | 12th Apr 24, 8:22am 1712866924

I'll need a new phone soon...I'll make sure I don't buy a Motorola.

by tis i | 12th Apr 24, 8:38am 1712867889

You didn’t just ‘cancel’ Motorola, did you?

by wingman | 12th Apr 24, 8:50am 1712868623

The Motorola share price has been climbing....pretty sure it isn't because they're offering phones that interface maori.

by The_Golem | 12th Apr 24, 11:22am 1712877766

Motorola provide good value phones - but I just don't get this from a commercial standpoint. That said, it might not be purely commercial at Motorola, who are supporting endangered languages - a fairly significant technical challenge.