3G iPhone in Japan?

[mavis]

Whichever carrier though, it could easily turn out to be an American, 'gaijin thing' if you will, and thus maybe AU isn't interested.

I think it's more of a "Non-Japanese = inferior" mentality than anything else. Think about it: how many foreign-made phones have you seen AU selling? I could be way off base here, but I don't recall EVER seeing a Motorola or Nokia sold by AU. This is in contrast to DoCoMo and Softbank, who have throughout the years offered various phones other than the stock Sharp/Panasonic/Toshiba/NEC cookie-cutter crap everyone shoves down our throats.

In any case, I believe the iPhone will do very well here for the simple reason that it blows away ANY Japanese phone in terms of usability and coolness. I mean, the people who see my hacked Touch are astounded when they see me flipping through pics, using coverflow, and typing emails at 40 words per minute. Which of course brings us to what has already been mentioned a few times: the iPhone and iPod Touch right now are TERRIBLE for Japanese input. My J-friends with Touches all complain about how difficult it is to input kana/kanji - the predictive entry method works fine (albeit slow) but the conversion choices are VERY small and therefore difficult to press. Apple needs to do something to address Japanese input methods on the iPhone, or else it will be a tremendous flop. (except for me and my fellow gaijin, who will line up to buy one on launch day) ... hehe

 

[ob81]

The Japanese love Apple over here in Japan. The iTouch is selling extremely well, and everytime I am in Shibuya people want to talk about the iPhone. Don't know who will pick it up, but it will be a hit. Can't freaking wait.

 

[ob81]

My vote would go for DoCoMo.

They definitely have the best coverage in Japan.

Next choice would be AU.

DoCoMo sucks. on paper they are availiable in a lot of areas, but the signals you get in these areas is so terrible that it isn't worth using them

 

[sushi]

DoCoMo sucks. on paper they are availiable in a lot of areas, but the signals you get in these areas is so terrible that it isn't worth using them

Where, for example?

Personally I like DoCoMo. It's not the cheapest. But I usually have reception when my AU and Vodaphone using friends do not. This is especially true in outlying areas away from the bigger cities which is important to me.

AU would be fine as well.

Each year all providers seem to get better. When I had my first cell phone about 13 years ago, coverage was really limited.

 

[JapanScott]

World Phone

As for the (Japanese market) iPhone being a World Traveler.... is could be possible. I have a Nokia 6630 from (J-Phone ->Vodafone->) SoftBank. It is a quad-band phone. 3 GSM and 1 CDMA. I have made calls in Hawaii, Ohio, Singapore and Malaysia. Hopefully Apple will tuck something similiar into the iPhone.
My big fear is the service plan. I hope SoftBank, Docomo or whomever can come up with a decent plan that includes data usage. My banker (wife) won't go for if there isn't a cheap plan. (life sucks)



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6630

 

[sushi]

As for the (Japanese market) iPhone being a World Traveler.... is could be possible. I have a Nokia 6630 from (J-Phone ->Vodafone->) SoftBank. It is a quad-band phone. 3 GSM and 1 CDMA. I have made calls in Hawaii, Ohio, Singapore and Malaysia. Hopefully Apple will tuck something similiar into the iPhone.
My big fear is the service plan. I hope SoftBank, Docomo or whomever can come up with a decent plan that includes data usage. My banker (wife) won't go for if there isn't a cheap plan. (life sucks)

Being able to use the iPhone world wide would definitely improve it's acceptance.

All three companies, DoCoMo, AU and SoftBank have multiband options.

I hope that the Japan model will work in more areas than just Japan. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Who knows, maybe someday there will be a world wide standard for cell phones in both frequency and system used.

 

[Aaargh!]

Am I reading something wrong? The article says there needs to be an 3G iPhone before it can be sold in Japan.. then it says in the next sentence there is no GSM service in Japan... correct me if I'm wrong but if you have no GSM service... a 3G phone would be worthless....

No, UMTS / HSDPA is not GSM, it's meant to be the successor to GSM but technically it's completely different.

 

[emotion]

Who knows, maybe someday there will be a world wide standard for cell phones in both frequency and system used.

Some phone manufacturers think that standard will be wimax.

 

[iSamurai]

phones sold in japan wont work else where... except places where PHS or similar operate. these phones u dont put in sim cards... and whats ironic is that it's 2G, but they say the 3G ones are going on sale in japan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Handy-phone_System

 

[sushi]

Some phone manufacturers think that standard will be wimax.

Interesting that you mention wimax. Some of my Japanese telecommunications friends have spoke of supporting the wimax standard, so maybe that will be it.

You would think that with worldwide mobile human population, the cell phone companies would be pushing towards a world wide standard.

FWIW, when I first got a cell phone here in Japan, to call directly from cell phone to cell phone the person you were trying to call had to have a cell phone from the same company as your own. So groups of friends would buy their cell phones together to insure that they could talk to one another. Finally, the companies here in Japan started sharing access and things improved dramatically.

 

[asxtb]

DoCoMo sucks. on paper they are availiable in a lot of areas, but the signals you get in these areas is so terrible that it isn't worth using them

Where, for example?

Personally I like DoCoMo. It's not the cheapest. But I usually have reception when my AU and Vodaphone using friends do not. This is especially true in outlying areas away from the bigger cities which is important to me.

AU would be fine as well.

Each year all providers seem to get better. When I had my first cell phone about 13 years ago, coverage was really limited.

I agree with ob81. Like he said, with DoCoMo you get more coverage, even away from the bigger cities, but it isn't a great reception. I've had all 3 services and DoCoMo was by far the worst. AU was decent. And Vodafone/Softbank has been the best. I had no reception in my old apartment or my girlfriends (now also my) apartment with DoCoMo, but had/have full reception with Softbank. And I never got my mail sent thru on my DoCoMo phone. But I do think they have some of the better phones. That's what attracted me in the first place.

As for the iPhone, I would like to see it come to Softbank, but even if it did, I don't know if I would buy it. The phones available today, let alone next year, can do so much more than the iPhone it would be a bit of a downgrade to buy one. Unless, they added IR, 'bar code' reader/scanner, TV and IC chip. I could even do without the IR and bar code reader, maybe TV, but I need my IC chip.

 

[sh1n1gam1]

Am I reading something wrong? The article says there needs to be an 3G iPhone before it can be sold in Japan.. then it says in the next sentence there is no GSM service in Japan... correct me if I'm wrong but if you have no GSM service... a 3G phone would be worthless....

The other think I find funny is that there is GSM service in Japan- so I question the article having any truth to it at all..

I have been to Japan with my iPhone and it worked just fine... data and voice....

Er, how did you manage to get your iPhone to work in Japan? AT&T's own international roaming page (pop-up about traveling to Japan and Korea, to be exact) clearly states that you need a 3G 2100MHz compatible handset for it to work in Japan. See

http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/en_US/popups/travel-to-japan-south-korea.jsp

The iPhone is most certainly not a 3G 2100MHz compatible handset so I'm really curious how you managed to use it in Japan. Where in Japan did you use it?

 

[swami16]

post problem

post problem

 

[josepho]

Er, how did you manage to get your iPhone to work in Japan? AT&T's own international roaming page (pop-up about traveling to Japan and Korea, to be exact) clearly states that you need a 3G 2100MHz compatible handset for it to work in Japan. See

http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/en_US/popups/travel-to-japan-south-korea.jsp

The iPhone is most certainly not a 3G 2100MHz compatible handset so I'm really curious how you managed to use it in Japan. Where in Japan did you use it?

TXCraig could not have used his iPhone in Japan. You would be correct in thinking that you would need a compatible 3G handset in order to roam in Japan, a criterion which clearly the iPhone does not meet.

GSMWorld, the definitive guide of GSM and 3G coverage clearly outlines the networks available in Japan:
http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_jp.shtml

TXCraig would be correct that AT&T publish roaming prices for Japan, because roaming agreements may exist, but users would obviously need compatible handsets to be able to make use of any such agreements which might be in place.

 

[JapanScott]

Not completely true

phones sold in japan wont work else where... except places where PHS or similar operate.

A more precise statement would be "Most Japanese phones...." I know SoftBank and Docomo DO sell 'world phones'. See my post above about my Nokia.

 

[BiikeMike]

Sorry all you DoCoMo haters, looks like it's official That Apple did meet with them.


Nothing firm yet though....

 

[Jade Cambell]

I love how Japan doesn't even have an EDGE network. They're so ahead of us in technology that they've ONLY got 3G! I bet that every square inch of Japan is covered with the highest quality 3G coverage. Well, not quite. But every square inch of the big cities.

 

[samab]

I love how Japan doesn't even have an EDGE network. They're so ahead of us in technology that they've ONLY got 3G! I bet that every square inch of Japan is covered with the highest quality 3G coverage. Well, not quite. But every square inch of the big cities.

That's because Japan has its own 2G cell phone system called PDC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Digital_Cellular

Look at the map of Japan, it's a small nation in geographic terms --- not really that hard to cover the whole country in 3G.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

If it's CDMA, would that work on Verizon's CDMA network here?

no. Even if they used the same fequrancy Verizon nor sprint would ever allow it. A sprint phone will not work on verizon network even though they used the same towers most of the the time. Verizon will only let Verizon phones work with them and sprint will only let sprint work with them. All other CMDA careers are the same in the US only the phones they let on will work.

 

[mavis]

Wirelessly posted (iTouch 1.1.2 (JB'd): Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3B48b Safari/419.3)

If it's CDMA, would that work on Verizon's CDMA network here?

no. Even if they used the same fequrancy Verizon nor sprint would ever allow it. A sprint phone will not work on verizon network even though they used the same towers most of the the time. Verizon will only let Verizon phones work with them and sprint will only let sprint work with them. All other CMDA careers are the same in the US only the phones they let on will work.

That may not be the case in the future - I remember reading lately that Verizon is planning to make their network available to ANY compatible device, pricing TBD. So a 3G iPhone sold in Japan should be able to work on their network, although since Japan is known for its ridiculous pricing, the cost might be prohibitive.

 

[Philberttheduck]

if i was living in japan, the iphone would seem like inferior technology compared to the other phones available, 3g or not.

 

[UltraNEO*]

if i was living in japan, the iphone would seem like inferior technology compared to the other phones available, 3g or not.

In terms of technological breakthrough's the iPhone will always be a couple of generations behind when compared to the local Japanese market, as new keitai handsets are springing up every months! Some of them having enabled 3.5g technology and all offering features that are more network friendly with improved user friendlyness. Then there's the strong security features... oh, you can forget PIN or passphrase, that's old school!! hahaha....

Personally, I can't see Apple updating their iPhone technology to stay competitive with the ever changing Japanese market some how. Overall, the iPhone will always be an attractive alternative mobile platform, perhaps seen more as a novelty gadget for Apple followers and fan-boys. For me, I'm 99.9% sure, I won't be buying one!!

DoCoMo's new keitai
http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/product/foma/905i/index.html

 

[JapanScott]

if i was living in japan, the iphone would seem like inferior technology compared to the other phones available, 3g or not.

Many of the features in Japanese phones don't likely find as much use outside of the big metropolis' like Tokyo et al. One-seg TV, IC chips for rail travel and paying at convenience stores and so on. For me personally these same features just aren't appealing... and I'm somewhat of a techno-geek. Why, don't they interest me ? Because I live in the REAL Japan.. I live in a smaller city (approx. 150,000 people) about 60+km north of Tokyo. I rarely ride a train. I have no interest in watching the Japanese TV that'd be available on a cell phone. And I'm rarely so rushed that I can't pull a ¥1000 bill out of my pocket to pay for my purchases at the convenience store.

That being said, there are NO features "missing" in the current iPhone for what I need. The key point in that sentence is CURRENT. Only Steve J. and company know what will be in the next iPhone. People keep forgetting that the iPhone is a 1.0 version. Apple obviously won't let it stall at 1.0. The iPhone will continue to evolve and change as time goes. Any talk of what it will or won't be is only speculation.

 

[makku]

I agree the character input system definately needs to be worked on for the iPhones to have any chance in Japan. Maybe having a stylus pen might help but I would rather not use one. Too bad you won't be able to type inside your pocket without looking at the display like with all other phones..
Oh I got an idea. How about bundling a small Bluetooth keypad that is like a current phone keypad with buttons?

They also need support for third party Java Appli. You cannot call it a mobile phone without supporting them these days.

I hope they put in Felica support in there cause I use it daily at the company cafeteria.

 

[JapanScott]

Which one ?

I hope they put in Felica support in there ....

Or Suica. Or Edy. Or Nanaco. Or ????? Those services are nice, but which one should they go with ? And again, as I said in my previous post... are they really relivant to the people who live outside of the mega-metropolis' ?