What is Digg?91 Comments
- tboutcher, on 08/18/2008, -10/+55It's the software, stupid.
- l800LEMMINGS, on 08/18/2008, -7/+46many tech writers and bloggers said the iphone would fail miserably in japan and that it works too simply and they prefer a more hands on approach. I'm not an apple fanboy but I'm glad to see they wouldn't prefer a device because it's more difficult to use.
- canewediggit, on 08/18/2008, -11/+45ugh, please fanboys, go look at the sales numbers and come back and tell me how big of a hit the iphone is in japan. try reading today's news that doesn't source appleinsider.com for it's figures;
http://www.japancorp.net/Article.Asp?Art_ID=19399
why is softbank cutting service pricing if sales are so strong? - humanerror, on 08/19/2008, -9/+40BREAKING: Apple fanboys will just make ***** up to glorify their fetish objects.
I live in Japan, and no one, not one Japanese person I know owns or wants an iPhone. What's more, I've never once seen one on the train (except in the hands of a foreigner), and I've never seen one being actually purchased at any of the various apple stores and cellphone stores that are everywhere in Tokyo.
Whether the apple cult wants to admit it to themselves or not, the thing is a flop here. For obvious reasons. - cubicledrone, on 08/19/2008, -3/+28Suggesting the Japanese don't know how to innovate is epic ignorance. Wow.
- LumpOfCole, on 08/19/2008, -3/+25Dugg for "Gameboy DS"
- proxypants, on 08/19/2008, -3/+20Funny, last week in Japan the news reported that Softbank was in a bit of a panic because they hadn't sold nearly as many iphones as they had hoped.
- inactive, on 08/19/2008, -7/+23Everything is big in Japan. Even my penis.
- neod, on 08/19/2008, -0/+15That's fanboys for us... Here's a quote from parent's news source:
"Initially, annual iPhone 3G sales were projected to top one million units, but now many forecast the sales will reach slightly over 100,000 units, an industry source said."
My Arse Technica... - TigerMarc, on 08/18/2008, -0/+15I think you just agreed with the article.
- pukupi, on 08/19/2008, -1/+12Buried for inaccurate. Sales of the iPhone in Japan are way off target and are likely to remain flat until Softbank builds a push mail app with emoji and a web browser that can correctly handle keitai sites.
- silversilver, on 08/19/2008, -1/+10Where do they get their facts from they have only sold 100,000 units in Japan.
- osarusan, on 08/19/2008, -2/+9I live in Japan and I own an iPhone. It's exactly what I wanted -- but that's just me, as I wanted more of a portable computer than a cell phone. I can say absolutely that it is far inferior to even the average Japanese cell phone in virtually every field. It's slow -- not just the internet mind you, but the basic features like going into "phone mode" or finding contacts, or accessing any other common feature, big and heavy, Not to mention that 99.9% of the ***** in the app store is only in English anyway, so the hype about being able to add to the phone's functions doesn' t help the average Japanese user. Further, the camera is worse than most Japanese phone cameras and you can't even adjust the focus, which makes it 100% useless for decoding the ubiquitous barcodes. The phone doesn't properly notify you when you get an email, and you can't view emoji -- the two of those alone are probably enough to chase away 90% of the market here. It's as if Apple did no research at all when they decided to introduce the iPhone here.
It sounds like I really hate the iPhone... I don't; I like it a lot. But again, I'm nowhere near the average phone user here. - koonchu, on 08/19/2008, -8/+14This is a leap backwards for cellphones overall, considering Japanese cellphones regularly come with built-in camera flash.
- praisethelard, on 08/19/2008, -0/+6It's a close cousin to the Gamecast.
- Pake, on 08/19/2008, -4/+10"iPhone is big in Japan, reflects local failure to innovate"
Japan innovates the hell out of things and in terms of features, you'll never find a phone in the US that competes. All this shows is what we already know, the Japanese have Apple fanboys as well. Do people not remember the pictures of the Apple store in Japan opening? - supermanred, on 08/19/2008, -1/+6You haven't tried an iPhone. seriously.
- sat0shi, on 08/19/2008, -2/+7I don't see anyone in Nagoya... But I'm sure they must be somewhere. I mean, it DID sell out on the first day so somebody's gotta have one. I just don't see them though, the proportion of non-users to users is too high.
- BossKey, on 08/19/2008, -0/+4@smartmlp - which means you represent almost 0% of the actual audience for consumer electronics, which long, long ago crossed over from mere devices into expressions of personality, like clothes, cars, and kitchen appliances. Even for high-performance engineering, you don't engineer a car like a Ferrari or Veyron, intentionally skip the body styling and paint job, and then expect anyone to pay attention.
- mpeters13, on 08/19/2008, -2/+6I like the iPhone and all, but the opinions reflected in this article are stupid and immature. Seriously? Most phones offered in Japan trounce the damned iPhone for featured and personalization. Please STFU, enjoy your iPhone, and stop spreading FUD. Seriously. I like my iPhone, but I'm calling ***** on this one.
- blackhand0114, on 08/19/2008, -1/+5What is this Gameboy DS? I want one.
- craigyarnall, on 08/19/2008, -1/+5Epic fail.
- kelly, on 08/19/2008, -0/+4Its funny how opposite reality actually is
- supermanred, on 08/19/2008, -0/+4Amen
- SniperZero, on 08/19/2008, -1/+5I wonder how many were bought by actual Japanese people and not just foreigners?
- tokabowla, on 08/19/2008, -3/+6How many fanboys do you think have actually shoved their damn iPhones up their ass by now? 200? 400,000?
Probably somewhere in the middle... of their digestional tract. - deanc, on 08/19/2008, -0/+3Actually the iphone is failing in japan and this is PR 'spin'.
They reduced the unlimited data charges so this it is now the lowest of any country in the world in order to help push sales.
Dont believe the hype.
Cheers,
Dean - KyleGoetz, on 08/19/2008, -3/+6If the Japanese iPhone has any of the amazing features of even an AU cellphone, I'll take two. The best cellphone I've ever owned is a phone made by AU. Frigging KDDI. Amazing. The predictive text is just so GOOD in Japan.
- Urkel, on 08/19/2008, -1/+4If there weren't sensationalistc ***** Apple articles, there wouldn't be Digg.
- supermanred, on 08/19/2008, -0/+2That "aura" is features that actually work. They release stuff that works, and add features as they become available...and by available, that means tested over and over again by Apple and proven to work. Sure, they've had a dozen or so features go bad but usually within a few weeks they correct the problem...
Windows XP never fixed the major problem it had where all of a sudden all your ***** folders would become read only and there was no way to get them back to normal functionality... how ***** is that? I know 2 people who switched because of that stupidity alone. - BossKey, on 08/19/2008, -0/+2Don't know why you are getting dugg down, this is pretty widely accepted about Japanese vs American product development. A longer feature list can be trumped by fewer features that work better and work the way you actually need them to.
- inactive, on 08/19/2008, -0/+2The touch diamond is STILL just a Windows mobile device - in other words its an attempt to polish a turd.
Buy one to prove how cool you are for not having an iphone and then regret it every time you have to use it. - gullevek, on 08/19/2008, -0/+2well I think you don't know much about japanese phones. All japanese phones cann download apps. For Docomo they are called "iAppli" and are java apps. They exist since forever, long before the iPhone was a wet dream from Steve Jobs.
And the iPhone is physical missing things every cheap 2nd rate phone has here. TV, movie camera, high mega pixel camera that can focus, flash light, etc etc etc - mr_ziy, on 01/15/2009, -2/+4dugg for Arse Technica
- iBenzin, on 08/18/2008, -4/+6Yea but what use it for them if they can't even understand how to use it? It's the software that makes the iPhone truly shine.
- Phrase, on 08/19/2008, -2/+4Anyone who's gone to Japan and had to shop for cellphones KNOWS that this article is bs. Does the iPhone do TV? No. Does the iPhone read barcodes? No. Does the iPhone have an English-Japanese dictionary built in? ...no.
The iPhone isn't "just" missing a few features that a lot (not most, but a lot) of Japanese phones have in that price range. It's missing a lot. So it may be stylish, but in practicality, Japanese phones are far ahead...even farther compared to the average American phone. - Darkyuubi, on 08/19/2008, -0/+2that seem rather ironic but...ok
- KyleGoetz, on 08/19/2008, -0/+1Well, whoever makes the /software/ (since predictive text is a software, not hardware, function) does a bang-up job on Japanese cells.
- DarkDx, on 08/19/2008, -0/+1I c wt u did ther.
- qlynt, on 08/19/2008, -1/+2I live in Tokyo, and I have a Japanese phone, and even though it has a million features I end up using about 4 of them. My phone has a 5.2 mb camera, 1seg TV, semi-generic touch screen, GPS, qr code reader, ic-chip (felica), and a bunch of other random crap that no one uses.
My main problem is the phones are so damn locked down. Maybe I`m just wanting my phone to work more like a computer....
I can`t even put a photo or a jpeg on my microSD and view it properly on the phone. I have send an email to myself and then download the photo/pic from the email.
And of course my phone does have a full browser but, to use that I have to pay the $60 unlimited packet plan, or I can settle for the $40 unlimited i-mode plan...
And lets not even talk about the clunky GUI on these phones....that have looked the same since I visited for the first time 2 years ago. The only thing that ever changes with new models is the exterior design.
Basically, you can see what I am getting at here...tons of features, you end up using a handful, and the ones you would like to use are either locked-down or you are required to pay extra.
Even if the iphone isn`t successful, I hope it inspires the engineers here to change some of the way they design these things...And I guess thats the biggest problem....An engineer designs these Japanese phones with no consideration for the average consumer.
Me...I`ll wait on the iPhone to get out of `live beta`, but maybe by September a new iTouch will arrive which will satisfy the needs that my Japanese wunder phone fails to do. - TheReport, on 08/20/2008, -0/+1You fail at life
- gullevek, on 08/19/2008, -1/+2Seriously this is so *****. I haven't seen any japanese person who just uses the iphone. They use the iPhone as a PDA, for mail & full web browsing. Their main communication device is still the japanese mobile phone. Why? Because japanese phones are just still superior in input for japanese text. They have real push mail, they can see the tons of real japanese mobile pages (which are for young people much more important than "PC" pages).
Seriously, just go into _any_ store. There are no queues, no sold out phones. On the launch day, if you went to one of the bigger electronic stores there was no queue time, etc ... Just in some center shops.
Apple Fan Boys want to have the "hype", but it's not. The iPhone won't replace a japanese mobile phone in near future ... or ever. (because on a japanese phone you can at least copy and paste ...) - WiseWeasel, on 08/19/2008, -0/+1When the Dream ships running Android, maybe you'll have a point. Until then, nothing is even close to touching the iPhone OS.
- uradox, on 08/19/2008, -0/+1Unless you are stuck with some old phone or a pre-paid most Japanese mobiles do have downloadable content (not just limited to software). A bloody lot of it at that.
- beggersfunk, on 08/19/2008, -1/+2Well why Softbank cut the prices because to compete with other carrier. They didn't cut the price basicly is 2990 if you use 10MB or less for Data but if you use more then that they charge you the flat rate fee. This option is well know in Japan for all the carriers in here. To be honest iPhone sell like a hot cakes. People criticize the iPhone battery life and ***** but japanese phone is about the same too . You surf web for 2 hrs the battery drains out and watch tv drains out.
- silversilver, on 08/29/2008, -0/+1The NETWORK increased sales, the iphone didn't sell that many, they were just new customers that bought other phones. They have only sold 100,000 units in Japan.
- mrBitch, on 08/21/2008, -0/+1Where are you getting your facts from?
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20080809p2a00 ...
" Softbank's net increase in contracts, calculated by subtracting the number of cancelled contracts from the number of new contracts, stood at 215,400 in July.
Softbank is the official carrier of Apple's popular iPhone 3G, and its "Oto-san" (father) white dog advertising campaign has topped a private research company's favorability ratings for seven months in a row.
"The iPhone and Oto-san effect have given us a boost," a company representative said.
The figures released Thursday put KDDI, which operates the au brand of mobile phones, in fourth place with a net increase of 17,000 contracts. It apparently suffered as limited-term contracts ran out.
NTT DoCoMo was second with 94,200 contracts, and Emobile was third with a net increase of 65,000 new contracts. " - Urrelles, on 08/19/2008, -2/+3The iPhone success comes from ease of use design.
In Japan, good design means packing all sorts of ridiculous features into a product till it becomes a robot or super computer. Good design also means making things look pretty, even if they are not practical.
In America good design comes from ease of use in an item. How well can a noob learn it and become a master with it. Simplistic design (usually large) is key in the states. That why MAC machines are popular here. They have simple design and easy to use.
The end result is that people usually prefer something easy to use. Japanese products are not always easy to use, therefore American products can inflitrate and take over in some areas. - absofveal, on 08/19/2008, -0/+1Correct me if I'm wrong, but AU doesn't make any hardware, the phones are made by the hardware manufacturers (Hitachi, Sharp, Sanyo, Casio, etc.) and AU just provides the service. Same as with Docomo, Softbank, etc.
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