How did my iPad know which country it was in before connecting to Wi-Fi?

[Jamesin_x]

Hi, everyone, this is my first post here!
I have a US 5th-gen iPad which I powered on for the first time in a non-English-speaking country. What surprised me is that the first "Hello screen" after the English one was in that country's language. After that, on the language selection screen, the first language listed was again that country's language followed by English and the rest. I thought that the first suggested language depended on where the iPad was purchased. For example, in this video, a person is unboxing a German iPad and the first language in the language selection screen was German:
youtu.be/3u2SukUnLJ4?t=677
Since I have a US iPad, why wasn't English the first language? Does it really use nearby Wi-Fi hotspots to detect its location (I've read that somewhere)?

An even bigger question to me is how the "Hello screen" languages are listed. I can't really remember, but I believe "that language" was right after English. In the video, however, German was NOT the first language after English (it was Spanish). How is their order determined?

P.S. Is it possible to get to that initial setup screen without actually resetting my iPad?

Thanks for any clarification!

 

[TwitchyPuppy]

Welcome to iMore!

Do you need access to the setup screen often enough to justify it being in the “right” language from the get go?

 

[Jamesin_x]

No. But I don't think that answers my question. I think every question deserves an appropriate answer regardless of how meaningless or irrelevant it seems to anybody. Any kind of knowledge should be shared and I think there's nothing bad in wanting to know how an operating system determines its location.

Just my opinion.

 

[Trees]

Date and Time in Settings may play a role. If set to Automatic, its possible that upon power up, iOS may able to determine location based upon details provided by a time service like NTP (uses UTC).

If iOS "decodes" UTC and "maps" that to a general geographic region (say UTC +01), then maybe that is a way for iOS to determine a best estimate default language (Spanish if you are in Spain, French if in France) to use upon first power up. This assumes that WiFi is enabled and even without authenticating to a WiFi access point, that iOS is able to derive some general geographic or time related details.

All a guess on my part and could be completely wrong, but an interesting topic.

 

[Jamesin_x]

Hi, thanks for your response!

About the Date and Time settings, there's nothing you can change when you first power the device on. As soon as I took it out of the box and powered it on, it knew my location. Also, if it used just the time zone to determine location, there would be other languages on the top of the list, definitely not this one (it's not a major language in the area).

I thought what languages are listed there depended on where you purchased the device, but apparently it determines your location regardless of where you bought it.

 

[MaxSmarties]

The question is: where did you buy the iPad? In which country?
At the first boot, the iPad isn’t connected to anything and can’t determine its position

 

[MaxSmarties]

Hi, thanks for your response!

About the Date and Time settings, there's nothing you can change when you first power the device on. As soon as I took it out of the box and powered it on, it knew my location. Also, if it used just the time zone to determine location, there would be other languages on the top of the list, definitely not this one (it's not a major language in the area).

I thought what languages are listed there depended on where you purchased the device, but apparently it determines your location regardless of where you bought it.

Wait wait wait... is it an LTE-WiFi model ? It has an integrated GPS receiver...

 

[Trees]

Wait wait wait... is it an LTE-WiFi model ? It has an integrated GPS receiver...

Yes, if a GPS enabled model, and the iPad was able to acquire signal, then that may be why.

 

[Jamesin_x]

The question is: where did you buy the iPad? In which country?
At the first boot, the iPad isn’t connected to anything and can’t determine its position

Hi! It is a United States A1822 MP2G2LL/A Wi-Fi-only model. No LTE.

 

[MaxSmarties]

Hi! It is a United States A1822 MP2G2LL/A Wi-Fi-only model. No LTE.

So you bought it in the USA and turned it on for the very first time in another country ?
It makes no sense at all... the iPad can’t know your location until you connect it to a wireless network.

 

[Jamesin_x]

So you bought it in the USA and turned it on for the very first time in another country ?
It makes no sense at all... the iPad can’t know your location until you connect it to a wireless network.

I wasn't physically in the States when I bought it, but it was shipped to me here new and sealed, and I unboxed it and powered it up here in Europe. But it is still the US model with the US power plug etc.

That's exactly the reason why I was baffled when I saw that upon powering it up. I wonder what would've happened if I had bought a European iPad here and turned it on in the States. Would it have listed French/German/whatever-other-European-language first?

 

[linsiris]

The languages are listed regardless of where you purchase the device, in my experience all the different devices purchased in English or Spanish speaking countries display the "hello" message in several different languages. I´ve seen them go from English up to Mandarin, Turkish, Russian etc.

"Since I have a US iPad, why wasn't English the first language? Does it really use nearby Wi-Fi hotspots to detect its location (I've read that somewhere)?"

Also, I'm clearly NOT an expert, but maybe the surrounding IPS addresses tell the location to the device(?) just a thought.

Hopefully, someone who knows way more about this subject can shed some light.

P.S: Oh and as far as I know, you CAN'T access the setup screen unless you completely erase/reset your device.

Cheers

 

[Jamesin_x]

The languages are listed regardless of where you purchase the device, in my experience all the different devices purchased in English or Spanish speaking countries display the "hello" message in several different languages. I´ve seen them go from English up to Mandarin, Turkish, Russian etc.

"Since I have a US iPad, why wasn't English the first language? Does it really use nearby Wi-Fi hotspots to detect its location (I've read that somewhere)?"

Also, I'm clearly NOT an expert, but maybe the surrounding IPS addresses tell the location to the device(?) just a thought.

Hopefully, someone who knows way more about this subject can shed some light.

P.S: Oh and as far as I know, you CAN'T access the setup screen unless you completely erase/reset your device.

Cheers

Hi!
About the languages being "listed regardless of where you purchase the device," I know that, but in all the unboxing videos I've seen on YouTube the first languages displayed are the major world languages (as you would expect). In my case, however, this language was displayed right after English whereas I don't think I've even seen it in those videos. So, surely, it had to know the location because it definitely wouldn't have listed it second if I had turned it on in some other country.

I believe the only logical answer lies in those Wi-Fi hotspots. (Hmm, I wonder what would've happened if I turned it on somewhere where there are no Wi-Fi signals...) I really hope someone who understands this better can shed some light on this.

 

[Trees]

Since this is a new iPad you should be able to contact Apple Support and ask. They may be able to give more information.