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iPhone 3GS Is Number One In Japan
mudimba writes "The iPhone 3GS 32GB is currently the best selling phone in Japan (the 16GB version came in at number nine). This is in stark contrast to reports from earlier this year that the Japanese hate the iPhone. Nobody is sure what specific features caused the change of heart, though it is speculated that video capture and voice control might be part of the answer. When the 3G iPhone first came out it saw a spike in sales, but unlike the 3GS it was unable to outsell locally-made handsets."
This is in stark contrast to reports from earlier this year that the Japanese hate the iPhone.
This "hatred" was debunked shortly thereafter:
AppleInsider has posted a great article explaining that Wired's story about Japanese iPhone hate was completely false and has been edited at least twice. The comments in the article were recycled and taken out of context, with those interviewed blogging about the mistakes. The piece then goes on to analyze the iPhone's standing in Japan, as well as some of the major factors working for and against it. At last it points out that the Wall Street Journal tried the same myth of failure just after the phone's launch in Japan, recycled from a myth the year before, pushed by a research company with a possible anti-Apple agenda.
My work here is dung.
1...2...3...WHO CARES?!?
Just get it over with and changed the site to an Apple fanboi site.
it's small and expensive. That beats "feature-rich" any day of the week.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
The iPhone 3GS 32GB is currently the best selling phone in Japan (the 16GB version came in at number nine).
Is that indicative of storage being that big of a factor for phones? Or that the locally made devices compare to 16GB but not 32GB?
As a non-iPhone user, I must admit the iPhone is a touch bulky for me to use as a music device while I work out. Love my 2GB shuffle though. I guess I could see this with movies/videos on the iPhone but is there any reason I'm not getting that one would enjoy 32GB of storage? Maybe it's the stereotype that Asians take a lot more pictures than Americans? If these numbers are accurate, color me shocked that 32GB is #1 and 16GB is #9. I'm not saying that 16GB ought to be enough for anyone but you have to be using your iPhone as something else full time to utilize that. Are the applications at the app store really taking up that much space on your phone?
My work here is dung.
...which is often used in many countries, except for the US, where, I guess, the iPhones were designed?
"The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again."
It's not just Japan where the iPhone is selling like hotcakes, the Globe and Mail reports that there is a worldwide shortage for the iPhone 3GS.
Firstly, the Japanese, like much of the civilised world, have a distrust of the Linux operating system. The iPhone however runs using a variant of BSD, Linux's big, more professional daddy, and hence is trusted and enjoyed by those who value honour and pride, such as the Japanese.
Secondly, it is well known that phones running Linux-based OS's still require the user to drop down to a termnial screen to modify text configuration files to change things like their phone background or ringtone. This is unacceptable.
Thirdly, Linux requires the user to have a beard and/or a weight problem. People such as this are shunned by Japanese society, and rightly so. The natural consequence of this is that users of Linux phones are also shunned.
Together these reasons make it clear why the iPhone is acheiving such a success in those faraway eastern lands. They are so far away, aren't they?
It's all about the quality of the technology. Compare the 3G to the 3GS. ARM11 vs Cortex-A8. Spotty coverage vs solid coverage. Dropped calls vs clear calls. The 3GS is a way better phone all around than the 3G was.
And the Japanese are the ultimate technology connoisseurs. They knew, unlike the dopes who lick Steve Jobs' nutsack here in the US, that it was crap the moment they laid hands on it. The Japanese aren't brand-motivated. They are quality-motivated. That's why Japanese cars are boring but last forever. Americans look for cool things, which is why American cars are flashy and muscular but also break down constantly and have terribly assembled trim.
So the reports that the iPhone was selling terribly.. Yeah, that was true. But Apple has done a good job this time with a phone that finally appeals to the Japanese consumer. Sure, it may be the same old Corolla on the outside, but on the inside it's running a VTEC with DOHC.
The iPhone is turning into one of the foremost portable gaming platforms. Even the nice Nokia phones can't claim that. They've put Civilization on it now, FPSs, RTSs. The screen size:total size ratio is probably the highest yet of a gaming device. What's not to like?
I'm not saying this accounts for all the sales, but this is Japan we're talking about.
The Japanese aren't brand-motivated
Japan is the leading market for luxury brands, like Gucci, Louis Vitton, Hermes etc. Brand motivation and recognition are sky high.
There are no tentacle porn apps, so I really don't get the interest.
Civic, not Corolla. Good post, otherwise.
Maybe because those brands produce quality products?
Sure, it may be the same old Corolla on the outside, but on the inside it's running a VTEC
Bad analogy just kicked in yo.
I want to see some examples of Japanese phones that out dance the iPhone. They should be quite beastly!
http://www.google.com/search?q=iphone+3G+missing+features
Did it help?
Basically every Japanese cell phone supports "emoji" emoticons, but iPhone was long without the support. This definitely was a deal breaker for some people, especially younger consumers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoji
It's officially only available for Japanese customers, but it can be unlocked: http://www.iphonesavior.com/2009/02/spell-number-app-unleashes-free-iphone-emoji.html
The instructions sound suspicious but I personally tested this on 2.2 firmware and it worked. I can now use emoji in text messages, tweets, or any other text field. It's also a great way to amaze your friends who have iPhones; every iPhone from 2.2 up supports viewing emoji by default.
The Sticky Issue - My TF2 Blog
So the reports that the iPhone was selling terribly.. Yeah, that was true.
Actually, no, it wasn't. The first post in this thread clearly shows that myth has been debunked. By several sources.
(about luxury products)Maybe because those brands produce quality products?
So do others. In this segment, quality is just a part of the overall package you are buying. If you compare a Timex and a Patek Philippe, they probably show the time equally well.
Although Japan is an important market in it's own right, success in Japan is more important for the ripples in creates in the rest of Asia. Trends in Japan remain an important influencer in the region, with Asians generally paying far more attention to Japanese fashion, pop stars, gadgets and movies than American equivalents. Apple has negotiated an initial sale of 5 million iPhones to Unicom in China, the news that it is now the No. 1 phone in Japan (and ripple affects such as more Japanese pop stars and actors using them) will make that first 5 million sell even faster. With North America, Europe and, now, key parts of Asia on board, the rest of the world will follow. What we are looking at here is the emergence of a global computing standard that will be with us for decades.
Actually, those several sources you claim all point back to one article on Apple Insider which never actually disproved the sales numbers.
iPods sold badly. Get over it. Jeez, it's like a religion with you guys.
Yeah, but with my Patek Philippe, I get the privilege of paying $1500 or so every time I have it serviced. You can't get that kind of quality in a Timex.
The Japanese dig the compass.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
The Japanese aren't brand-motivated. They are quality-motivated. That's why Japanese cars are boring but last forever.
That's wrong. If you had spoken to a British or American consumer at the time of Japanese automotive boom, you would have found that they are just as quality motivated as the American consumer. And had you spoken to American or British or Italian automotive makers, you would have found some of them wanted quality but were just slightly misinformed as to how they should attain it.
As someone who's taken a course on this, we got the Japanese invention known as The House of Quality pounded into our heads. It's basically a far superior way to "define relationship between customer desires and the firm/product capabilities." The Japanese invented this, I don't know the exact origins (wish I did) but instead of it ended up as some weird business process patent it ended up being used by everyone over there. As a result, their cars didn't leak oil (like the British motorcycles) and they didn't slowly reject every screw that was holding them together. I'm sure the Japanese had many more tools at analyzing the engineering aspects of cars but the fact of the matter is that their engineering and quality control practices just exceeded anything anyone else had (if anyone else had quality control at the time).
Americans look for cool things, which is why American cars are flashy and muscular but also break down constantly and have terribly assembled trim.
This seriously got moderated up? Have you ever been to Tokyo? Have you seen how flashy that city is? Have you ever seen Japanimation, Japanese commercials or game shows? Flashy is all I can think of to describe that.
Your cultural stereotypes humor me. But I think you're suffering from some serious misinformation and anecdotes to which I could provide counter-anecdotes all day long. But both stances are merely an exercise in futility.
They knew, unlike the dopes who lick Steve Jobs' nutsack here in the US, that it was crap the moment they laid hands on it.
Well, if they laid hands on it, they've already purchased it and that's a win for Apple. Or are you saying that the (virtually) same reviews each culture read influenced them differently? The Japanese have more options than we do and they had things that were better than the original iPhones. Those weren't really marketed in America. The iPhone wasn't crap compared to what 90% of Americans were already using. That's the important point, not that American consumers are any stupider or smarter than Japanese consumers.
My work here is dung.
Indeed, although it's just as much a pro-Apple agenda that spread the news: if people don't like a product, it's much better if you can dismiss it as an irrational hatred, rather than considering the possibility that they might *gasp* actually prefer other phones.
For this news, I'd be curious to see market share. Since Apple only have one phone, and Nokia etc have loads of different products, looking at single phone sales whilst useful in some contexts, is not useful for judging who's number one (it's the multiple choice fallacy where votes get split between similar products).
There's also the obvious point that the phone has only just been released - it's misleading to claim "Number One", since this is a figure based on one month's sales, not quarterly or yearly, let alone total phones in existence.
And since the Iphone is the only phone that gets covered on Tech sites like Slashdot (god knows why), it's not surprising that they'll do fairly well. I fear we'll have a self-fulfilling prophecy where we end up with it being the most popular phone, precisely because of the coverage solely on this one phone. And then we'll end up with a monopoly platform on mobile platform that's more locked down and controlled by a single company. Nice one, Slashdot!
For all we know, those other phones may have been number one (indeed, one of them must have been), but we wouldn't have heard about it on Slashdot.
Consider - what was the Number One phone, last month in Japan, and why wasn't there a story about it? Or the Number One phone in the US, come to that? It's only news if it's unusual.
Of course I'll probably be modded down now for providing possible explanations that don't fit in with the pro-Apple viewpoint here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_Field_Communication
4u
iPods sold badly.
Uh, you might have a case with the original iPhone but you certainly do not have a case with iPods. They surpassed Sony's MP3 player in 2005 and there's no shortage of information saying they're very popular in Japan.
Get over it. Jeez, it's like a religion with you guys.
You have to own all models of the iPhone in order to be eligible to be completely clear so that your OT (operating telephone) levels are uninhibited. Are you a suppressive person? Oh no, I've been in contact with you! Great Woz! Now Jobs won't let me get to the last OT level no matter how much I spend on his products!
My work here is dung.
Local info, with some context, seems to me to be worthy of some pointage?
Whereas citationless "It's because of the compass" (down there a little) is currently Score: 2.
Here's hoping.
Yeah yeah, I know, I must be new here.
Someone has cut the meaningful column off the table. The one with them percentages.
So, as an ignorant American I am baffled by the rest of the list. The Sharp SH-06A is the no. 2 phone? It seems to be a fairly boring clamshell phone with a nice camera. Am I missing something or do the Japanese just really value a good camera? Sharp phones in general, can someone explain them?
The Japanese are among the biggest label whores on the planet (and I mean that in the nicest way possible). "The Japanese aren't brand-motivated" is one of the funniest things I've ever read on slashdot. I used to live in a well known ski resort town and watching the Japanese tourists descend on the luxury label stores like a horde of locusts devouring everything in their path was a sight to behold.
- Toby
There's even an app for that !
That's pretty much why I waited for the 32GB 3G[S] before I got an iPhone. The old ones sucked and had lousy storage space. I could get a free phone (used to have a Vu, which my mom inherited) that did just about what they did with a 4GB add in memory card. 32GB and video mail is hard to beat tho :-p. That and the dual core gpu did it for me. The gaming is ridonculous for a portable device.
It's really a mini mac with a phone radio added, rather than simply a phone. It's a bad ass device.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
If it's not true, then why on earth is this newsworthy in the first place? (Lots of phones are number 1 in some particular country - after all, you obviously have one "number 1" per month, per country, which is a lot).
The only possible valid reason I can think this could be news is if the Iphone was selling badly, thus it's midly newsworthy that a bad selling niche phone gets number one (albeit in one country, for one month, on the month it was released in that country).
The Japanese can afford that shit. Anyone who can't was already voted off the island. They've got a saying over there, get busy living or get busy dying. Those who don't agree are dead or moved to Brazil (no, really.) They have no space for large showy shit, so they have small showy shit like nine trillion dollar handbags.
Also, that kind of boutique stuff is often very high quality as others have said. You can tell the difference between the real stuff and the fakes because the fakes aren't top quality. If that's your differentiating factor, you are justified in charging what the market will bear.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/08/18/canalys_q2_smartphone_sales/
Interestingly, this article suggests Asia-Pacific is by far Apple's weakest market still, with Nokia holding nearly 60% of phone sales and Sharp and Fujitsu taking second place.
So yeah, I can't help but feel TFA is as much pro-Apple propaganda as the anti-Apple propaganda the parent poster was talking about.
Apple's certainly doing well in NA and Europe, but in the context of overall marketshare it's not doing so well in Asia-Pacific. Of course, that includes more than just Japan but that only furthers the point that the iPhone hitting number 1 selling handset of an individual month in an individual company is a hell of a cherry picked statistic.
There was the argument that Japan matter in these contexts because it was a major tech. market, but that's a position that's been eroded over the last decade since the SNES/Megadrive era when Japan was at it's peak in this respect. The US and Europe are now the bigger markets, so grasping at Japan as evidence of something in terms of tech. trends and importance doesn't really hold water anymore.
japan is identified by foreign consumers, apple users included, as a tech haven. high tech things come from japan and it is presumed only high-tech things will survive in japan and become popular.
for apple, having their iphone shunned by a japanese public was a death sentence in some sense for both asia markets and the US. if the japanese dont want it, word of mouth dictates the iphone is stupid, or inferior, or lacks features that superior japanese technology like nokia would have. the snub from the japanese could have been as simple as "the kanji support sucks" or "NTT Docomo is slow as shit so i hate using data on any cellphone" but it has repercussions to the global marketing machine of apple.
the product is consumed after money is spent by apple. perhaps the iphone is cheaper, perhaps it offers more features and perhaps its "more free" than its american counterpart but the final statement is this: "japanese love iphone!" meaning stateside mac fanboy otaku can squee in joy as consumer maintenance takes hold and assures them its okay to continue purchasing the apple line.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The 32GG 3GS may be number 1, but the article doesn't mention what sort of market share it takes to claim that spot. I was just in Japan for most of this summer, and I went looking at phones with some Japanese friends. There are just SO many feature-rich phone choices out there from all of the major carriers that no single model really seemed to stand out as a market leader. If the 32GB 3GS got even a small bump in sales, that could have pushed it into first place.
As for the swipe payment option, I expected to see things like Mobile Suica used by lots of people, but it really doesn't seem to be too common yet. Most people still seemed to pay for train and subway trips with regular Suica (or Pasmo, Icoca, etc.) cards in their wallets. It's certainly a cool feature, but it apparently hadn't been adopted by a large part of the population yet.
Since Apple only have one phone, and Nokia etc have loads of different products...
You didn't read the summary. It plainly states that the 16GB iphone is number 9. That would indicate 2 things
http://p8ste.com - Web based Clipboard
I looked for iPhones in Tokyo before getting one (here in the US). This was in June this year. In three weeks of walking around and taking trains, I saw a lot of phones. I only saw three iPhones. Say what you will of their love or hatred of these. Regardless of being featured heavily in every electronic store I went into, very few were using them.
Much like Apple.
I don't have any evidence, but if I had to guess I'd say that it's the app store that made the difference. The app store is truly transformative, in many non-obvious ways.
It brings network effects to the phone. For a while it seemed everyone I knew had a RAZR, but the popularity of the phone added no value to the individual user. With the iPhone, however, the popularity of the phone brings increased developer attention, which the app store translates to improved functionality, creating a positive feedback loop. Friends will also recommend apps to each other, further creating a network effect, and reminding the non-iphone-owning friends what they're missing.
The app store brings the best form of lock-in Windows ever had - But will it run my apps? - to the phone. Suddenly no non-iPhone can be a true upgrade, since you will likely lose some of your app functionality. Common things, like interfaces for major social sites, etc., will likely be standard, but everyone will have a different set of apps they consider crucial, which will make upgrading difficult. The breadth of the app store has brought the long tail to the phone. It also allows people to be very picky. I spent a several weeks testing out various todo lists on the iPhone, and I won't be happy to change phones unless it has a todo list that meets the very specific criteria I developed.
Certainly other phones will soon have access to app stores of their own, but the huge lead that Apple now has will make it very hard for someone else to catch up. They'll tout how they don't have the same approval headaches that the iPhone does, and that openness will be great. But we don't have to look far for lessons on how the popular operating system can be vastly inferior, yet still more successful than competitors.
The iPhone app store sets the iPhone up to succeed for all the reasons that Windows has. I think it's going to take a significant technology leap or other serious market disruption to stop them at this point. Regardless of how you feel about Apple, you have to respect the the way they've played this.
Agreed. If I want to get engaged to my Japanese girlfriend, she wants a Tiffany or Cartier ring. Not because it's more expensive or anything but probably because of the brand.
3GS alleviates this. Its camera is pretty darn good in good light. Very sharp, focusing is intuitive, and it can focus fairly close, too (for barcodes).
I know it's a troll, but man, that made me laugh.
A fetishist is not a connoisseur.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
"Consider - what was the Number One phone, last month in Japan, and why wasn't there a story about it? Or the Number One phone in the US, come to that? It's only news if it's unusual."
Two possible reasons:
1) You can't get it outside Japan so the US-centric readership of Slashdot doesn't care.
2) You said it yourself - it's only news if it's unusual. That's kind of the definition of news.
I live in Japan (and own an iphone but that's moot for this discussion). Softbank has done a few things lately that probably had quite a bit to do with this. They have been for months running a hugely successful ad campaign with a little white Dog as the mascot, I don't pay enough attention to tell his name or the details but I guarantee you my wife and mother-in-law could (and just about any trend oriented female or male on the street could). They also recently signed SMAP and began running commercials featuring them a week or so ago. If you aren't aware of just how unbelievably huge SMAP is here I most likely can't explain it, explaining a "boy band" who are now in their 30s would probably be hard enough haha. I had never seen anything like it personally coming from the US, they are very very popular here amongst nearly all types of people and it shows Softbank is the king of advertising in the phone market over here.
Secondly, they recently dropped the price way down on the iphones both on the ownership fees and the monthly packet plans. I'm not fully aware of the details as I got my iphone before the drop (dammit!) but if you go past a Softbank store FREE IPHONE is plastered all over the place. The free ones are the old model but the 3Gs is fairly cheap too. Softbank is known to do some fairly shady fee structures so some customers are wary of them, but hey you can't beat free as a marketing tool to get customers into the store. Also iphone was known as a luxury here and some people probably see this price drop as a chance to get one finally.
Oh and they also finally came out with a one-seg video adapter for the iphone which many Japanese want. (Digital Broadcast TV on your phone.)
So yeah, in summary, new gadget (always works in Japan) + super hot marketing campaigns + cheap prices + finally getting the iphone to keep up with the Joneses tech wise, win win for Softbank and I'm not really surprised as a casual observer of the "keitai" market that iphone 3Gs is #1 here (this month).
It's not that hard to be big in Japan.
The company does not survey the carrier's own shops, which are major players in the Japanese cellphone market. In addition, number three, the Panasonic 830P is an almost one year old phone (last year's winter model) since superceded by two newer Panasonic phones, and the Casio W63CA is similarly an ancient (in Japanese terms) model.
Thus, to anyone who knows about the Japanese mobile phone market (such as anyone who reads my blog) the survey results are obviously biased towards bulk retailers and the people who frequent them rather than to the average Taro who frequents the carrier's own store on the High Street.
The Japanese aren't brand-motivated. They are quality-motivated.
Thanks for the laugh. I needed that. Have you ever been to the DFS Galleria in the Waikiki area of Honolulu? It is a duty free mall which caters mainly towards Japanese tourists. I took a look around and was handed a bunch of flyers for NTT Docomo and other Japanese companies (in Japanese of course). They sell all of the high end luxury brands there at inflated prices. I could get the watches they sell there for half the price or even less in stores on the mainland. They sell them at those prices because they can get away with it as the Japanese tourists don't seem to care about the price.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Also, it needs to be noted that the iPhone is only offered by SoftBank, which is the 3rd smallest carrier in Japan. The iPhone's sales are still dwarfed by phones offered by the 2 largest, NTT Docomo and KDDI's au.
Also, here in Japan, softbank coverage is absolutely the worst ever. No building penetration, dead spots inside of major cities, etc...
If it wasn't locked to SoftBank, I might pick one up myself, but the phone is to make calls, and if I can't do that, then the phone, by association, sucks.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
http://www.google.com/search?q=iphone+%2B3GS+missing+features
Do what you want with that, I can't be bothered to open the links. Wake me up when they add multitasking.
I don't know if its just me but you seem to be implying that the iPhone has become popular because of articles about it. I think there are articles about it because it is a good phone that is popular. People like to read about things they like and buy and thus its easy to get high readership on an article about a something that people love. I want an iPhone but not because of articles. I want it because in my opinion it's the best 'phone'(palm top) out there. It may not have the most features and blackberry's may have more and better features but blackberrys lack the usability that the iPhone delivers.
You talk about a fallacy in your second sentence so you should know it is a fallacy to assume that the articles are creating the popularity and not the other way around. You don't know which caused which and you are just assuming the one that fits your position. Could it be that this article was written because of the previous article claiming Japan hated the iPhone (omfg negative press about the iPhone, that can't happen under your assumptions)? If the previous hate article didn't exist then this article wouldn't exist. Find a article about Japan hating Nokia then you can ask why there wasn't an article about Nokia. You are comparing Apples to oranges.
I have the iPod Touch and I think it may be one of the greatest devices I have used, when I have wifi, and it is still lacking many of the iPhones features.
So while you may be right about the iPhone sales in Japan, I think you are wrong about this so called Apple conspiracy. It's not everyone's fault that Apple makes some great products. It's not just marketing that gets people to buy millions of units of something as expensive as an iPhone.
Have you even tried using other phones and comparing them to the iPhone? All the 'iPhone killers' I have used are unbearably clunky and lack everything that makes the iPhone popular while only technically including the same features.
The video capture and voice control. It might be out of what people in the USA know, but in Japan and even most of Europe, those features are standard features of every phone you can buy. And most of them are far better at it than the iPhone.
The only reason it gets bought is: Hype.
Technically, the iPhone is a total joke compared to other phones. Just as the iPod compared to other MP3 players. Or the iMac compared to other PCs.
It's shiny. It's "cool". So the cattle buy it. Simple as that.
Oh: They vote for $defaultParty too for the same reason.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
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No, he read the summary. You read his post but failed to comprehend it. He isn't saying that they aren't looking at multiple phones individually. He is saying that you should add up all the different phones that nokia sells with all the phone Apple sales to get a real comparison. Since Nokia sells a lot of different models, it is natural for Apple (which sells very few models) to have a model come out high on the list.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
I've lived in a major Japanese city, Sapporo, the last 2 years. One of my best friends there is a cellphone store manager.
The iPhone was poorly recieved AT FIRST in Japan for several reasons- it didn't support eMoji (the japanese emoticons, of which there are too many to count), and
it wasn't a flip phone. Almost all Japanese phones in the high end are still variations on the clamshell flip phone. It was all touchscreen- the only phone I've ever
seen in Japan that was- this might show they like tactile response with actual keys. Finally, it was a foreign brand.
The 1 and major reason it took off was simple- it became FREE. Yes, they were giving them away free with a 2 year contract, because no one was paying for them.
They seem to have later added eMoji support, and those 2 things did it. As the iPhone gained huge status in the US, the image trickled over to Japan, rather than the
other way around.
I'd argue that a large reason Apple products in particular are very, very popular in Japan (now including the iPhone) is that Apple's design is well in tune with Japanese
high end tastes- think about the MUJI brand. Japanese high design has common themes- large, smooth surfaces un-interrupted by dials, all hardware from doorknobs to phones
flows into each other seamlessly. If you study Japanese modern design, or even take a peek at consumer items in Japan, you'll see what I mean. That very Japanese-like
cohesion of design principles, making complex things look as simple and uninterrupting to their surroundings as possible, is very evident in all of Apple's design. In fact, I'd
bet a large amount of money that Apple's designers take cues knowingly from Japanese design trends, as well as American modern, to tap into this. From my point of view
as a Japanese specialist, it's very obvious. I'm suprised no American designers have mentioned this connection yet.
Btw, I love Apple's design- but I hate their products. Go figure.
It's already been well pointed out, but once more for the record: There was no "change of heart". There never was a "hatred" in Japan for the iPhone, just a shoddy WIRED article (long since laughed out of the house) that made up the story. And don't let anyone tell you that it's the new 3GS that made the difference; the 3G was the #1 mobile phone in customer satisfaction in Japan in 2008. More links for anyone following the tale: http://www.mactivist.com/2009/06/iphone-macs-ipod-sweep-2008-customer-satisfaction-rankings-in-japan http://www.mactivist.com/2009/07/iphone-japan
Got it. So the manufacturer with the widest range wins.
Not sure how that information is useful.
When I got a phone I asked for the cheapest one I could find. So if that happens to be a Nokia then it proves Nokia has better phones? I think the posters logic is flawed.
http://p8ste.com - Web based Clipboard
From the comments to TFA:
tiborg 08/17, 10:29am, EDT
Special pricing ending
The spike might be because of the current sale on the phone ends at the end of September and the additional offer of up to 10,000 yen in gift certificates ends this month, so people like me decided to make the switch now while the getting is good.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
There would seem to be many parallels between this SoftBank you speak of and AT&T.
"No building penetration, dead spots inside of major cities, etc..."
Pretty much the same as ATT. One has to wonder how much more popular the iPhone would be if it wasn't locked into these crappy carriers. It's amazing that they can sell these phones when they rarely work as such (I say this as a happy iPhone user).
I must not be the only one who has tried a handful of to-do list apps and yet not stayed with any of them. Care to share which one won you over?
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
Spotty coverage vs solid coverage.
WTF does that have to do with the iPhone?
Actually, a cheap quartz Timex is more accurate than a Patek Philippe, or any other mechanical watch. People don't buy mechanical watches for accuracy.
Are you adequate?
I wouldn't call it a troll just somewhat uniformed as SMS MMS isn't what they usually use in Japan, its an email based protocol. Some phones such as many Softbank phones come with SMS MMS but that's mostly for international use and the default messaging protocol is a form of push email. Tons of phones released in Japan do not have SMS MMS. Their largest carrier Docomo didn't have any for a long time until and when they did it was for their line international phone. SMS MMS is not an issue there.
I'm always surprised by the comments regarding Japan, the Japanese and their behavior. I lived the iPhone "revolution" from the inside in Japan, and the 3Gs being -now- at the top of the sales is not a surprise.
Initially, a bit more than a year ago, when SoftBank released the iPhone, it didn't work well for a number of reasons
1. The success abroad of the iPhone made the competition on the watch, this was reflected by a lot of bad publicity directed to the iPhone in the news
2. SoftBank initial contract requested to make an advance of 70,000 yen, besides the regular fees
3. SoftBank and their many pitiful shops gave an image (at the time) that did not go in par with the luxurious iphone
4. Many critics emerged (cannot change battery, fingernail insensitive screen, no TV, slow battery life [was true at the time], no cut&paste, can be slow)
5. Finally, many people were waiting for their contract with their current carrier to end.
Then at the end of 2008, SoftBank offered the iPhone (8GB) for zero yen (16GB was 400yen/m). From that time, little by little, it interested more and more people. Most of the foreigners I know got an iPhone.
I would say that things started to change from Spring 2009. Japanese amazing applications started to be advertised on TV etc...
Then arrived the 3Gs (June) and, at the same time, more and more Japanese wanted an iPhone.
The Japanese prefer the latest releases, and there is not much difference between the price of the 3Gs (monthly) compared to the 3G 16B.
Thus, when the "iPhone mania" started, everybody got the last one: the 3Gs.
The sales recommend the 3Gs simply because it is the last, and it's faster, longer battery life AND because the compass eases a lot the GPS navigation.
Not the voice control! Please, this is a joke. Nobody cares about that, here.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
The DS is the foremost portable gaming platform. The PSP is #2. Everything else is distant. "What's not to like" is that iPhone games to date are weak, compared to the quality of DS games. The game systems you see on the train in Japan are DSs.
The Japanese aren't brand-motivated. They are quality-motivated.
Then why was there such a long line when they opened Forever21 in Tokyo?
Also look at computers. Sony Vaio has a much better rep there, and that is not about quality.
Have you ever been to a bathroom in Tokyo? Not at a nice restaurant or Hotel, but an average place. Even my apartment that had a washlet (separate room) had the crappiest little bathroom. It resembled and RV bathroom - a big molded piece of plastic, the sink and shower share the same hose etc. Almost every apt I went to seemed to have the same type of bathroom. The washers and dryers there were also horrible. Most of the average priced dryers would steem dry your close and it would take about 4hrs.
I could go on but when I lived there consumers really weren't any more informed or concerned about quality than anyone else. They just had a different set of products that you could call cheap. But when it comes to brand motivation, Tokyo is probably the biggest display of brand worship you will ever see.
Either that or there is a disagreement on the actual figures.
Here's BCN Ranking's cell phone stats on July: http://bcnranking.jp/category/subcategory_0010_month.html There's always the initial spike of sales to the apple faithful, but I must admit they sold very well in general.
Here's their rankings on last week(August 10th-16th): http://bcnranking.jp/category/subcategory_0010.html Still selling well but nowhere near the triumph they are claiming. Still, the fact that they broke into the market at all is pretty impressive.
This is the first time the iPhone has been #1 in Japan. That is the news story. Usually a Japanese phone is #1. So this is man bites dog. That makes it news.
Also, Apple is selling more than a million iPhones every week, in almost 100 countries. The iPhone is news.
> Of course I'll probably be modded down now for providing possible explanations
> that don't fit in with the pro-Apple viewpoint here.
Slashdot has a pro-Apple viewpoint? You are out of your mind as well as exhibiting the emotional maturity of a small child. Slashdot is rabidly anti-Apple. What seems to you to be too much and too-positive Apple coverage is actually minimal Apple coverage and most of the time the articles are based on trolling.
Here in this article we see the poster commenting that this story contradicts an earlier story. Well, the earlier story was a complete troll, there was no truth to it. That is the typical Slashdot Apple coverage.
The iPhone earned its success honestly. At $99 it is the cheapest smartphone and almost 90% of users give it their highest satisfaction rating. People go out of their way to buy it, and they're glad they did. Get over it.
Precisely. I also just got a free ipod touch with a recent laptop purchase and to my huge surprise, I think the thing is as cool as all get out. I'm a serious computer dork and I didn't want one of these things at all because I didn't think that having one of these was worth bothering with when I can just use a regular computer just as easily. However, I've found I'm using the ipod touch to do more and more of my non intensive tasks and just leaving the computer off. Once you jailbreak it, you can do quite a bit of things that a normal computer would do (e.g. mount it with sshfs, transfer files to it, etc.)
The difference between the iphones and other cell phones is that the iphone is actually a really cool device, not just a phone. The last cell phones I have gotten from Motorola have gotten progressively worse (!) in terms of UI and even just plain reliability. Not to mention just about any kind of phone is much more limited than what the ipod touch does. E.g. my girlfriend's "smart" phone does e-mail, but no web-browser, and even if you have a web-browser, often it's a crippled in functionality and not nearly as nice to use as the zooming features on Safari. We get articles about the ipod and iphone because they blow just about every other device out of the water. Other phones might have similar functionality, but tend to not be as easy to use, or aren't designed well, etc.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
it is easier to crack kernels,firmware etc, idk?
home brews ,
I'm a Japanese mobile developer, and I have developed for a wide variety of Japanese handsets as well as the iPhone. The iPhone here was in a variety of ways inferior to national models, it had a poor camera and text is extremely hard to enter, not to mention it has no One-Seg TV tuner and no IC functionality for digital-wallet capabilities. The 3G was so unpopular for a while that Softbank basically had to start giving them away for free and offering a reduced price unlimited data plan - which made the handset popular enough they were able to clear out their stock. The 3Gs has a variety of features that produce less of a gap to how many Japanese like to use their phones, there is now video functionality etc. Also, the iPhone is quite powerful, the 3Gs having an nice high end ARM processor and a separate OpenGL ES 2.0 module. This allows for a variety of powerful applications, and make the iPhone a direct competitor to the Real3D POP-I standard phones and their architectures (such as the 930P with the UNIPHIER and 930SH with their ARM core and separate OpenGL ES module). Furthermore, from a development standpoint the iPhone has a pretty solid development environment whereas standard Japanese handsets use Mobile Java for cross-handset compatibility. As a personal viewpoint, I don't see the 3Gs maintaining such a high lead for an extended period of time. Japanese consumers purchase phones based on the feature sets, and each handset has a variety of unique features: say a high quality digital camera, 3D display, highly integrated digital media player functions, fully waterproof and ultra-durable, etc. Once a phone comes out with a unique and attractive feature, the consumer base who are obtaining new handsets will begin purchasing those handsets instead of the iPhone. Personally I use the IC digital wallet features on my phone constantly, I convert videos for my children to watch into standard mp4 files (without iTunes) and my phone plays them very well, and I watch the news 3 or 4 days a week while I take a coffee or tea break in the afternoon regardless of where I am. I play games on my phone all the time, but the lack of buttons on the iPhone makes playing the kind games I like hard to play on the iPhone. It's that same lack of buttons and the terrible input system on the iPhone that makes writing e-mail, something I do many times each day, absolutely awful on the iPhone. So, despite the fact we have a 3Gs right here on the desk for development which, if I chose I could take with me and use whenever I wanted, I don't. To be perfectly honest the only thing I like about the iPhone is the fact the development environment is well put together, it isn't Mobile Java, and I don't need to worry about checking my application on a variety of handsets to make sure it works. The built in Safari browser is nice too, but as there are options like the Jig browser on normal handsets it's not really a deal breaker for me.
Surprised this topic of discussion keeps coming up, but basically here's what we've learned the 20 other times this subject has come up.
The Japanese really do hate the iphone -- as a phone. However, they love it as a mobile web device. It's real competition in Japan is probably vs netbooks. Most iphone owners still own a Japanese phone in addition to their iphone and are not using the iphone as their primary "phone". Nevertheless, the iphone is very popular in Japan and many people are perfectly willing to pay for it and their regular phone service as well.