They also need support for third party Java Appli. You cannot call it a mobile phone without supporting them these days.
yea...verizon is supposed to release "4G" in 2009...i guess that would be cool
Unless you live in Japan, anyway.
Seriously, have you ever tried installing a third-party appli on a Japanese phone? I mean, there are hundreds (thousands?) of free games and other appli available out there, but not ONE of them can be installed on a Japanese keitai. The only ones you can install are the ones that are available for a fee through the carrier's portal service. And when I say 'for a fee' I'm not of course referring to the cost of data transfer, but to the Y300-500 fee charged per game, in addition to the cost of data transfer.
Japanese phones may have lots of great features that can only be used in Japan (one-seg, Felica, etc) but the iPhone absolutely SLAUGHTERS all of them when it comes to usability and design. Not to mention those things people overseas probably take for granted, like the ability to send/recieve REAL email (IMAP/POP) instead of SMS/MMS only (what I would give to be able to check my real email from my cell phone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!@!!!!!) ... The iPhone will do well in Japan, of that I have no doubt. The only thing they'll really need to work on is the Japanese input method, and possibly offering OTA iTunes access (since a lot of Japanese don't actually have their own computers) ...
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' ?
Yes, I agree the cost of the applis for keitai are expensive, but their quality tend to be better than the ones downloaded for free...
Actually, I haven't sent a single email from my new iMac since I got my iPod Touch, I use it for email these days because I average about 40-50 words per minute on it (so it's nice and quick) and since I have it with me at all times I can reply to emails no matter where I am (although they aren't actually sent until I'm at home or at work) ... So to answer your question - no, I can't imagine a keitai being a good device to check email on. The iPhone, however - yeah - it's light years ahead of Japanese keitati when it comes to text entry and usability.The IMAP/POP mail might be useful but do you really enjoy reading or typing long mails on the phone?
But Felica isn't used globally, in fact all of the cities with Felica systems are in Asia, with Japan obviously being the leader. Since Apple doesn't make market-specific products, I can't really see them including a Felica chip (or 1seg for that matter - again, Japan-only) ...Suica, Edy, and Nanaco are all based on FeliCa so there shouldn't be too much trouble there. The chip is pretty small and I am sure Apple will have space to fit one in an iPhone.
Okay, it may not be relevant to you fair enough, but it can't hurt Apple to include one in. It is really an essential feature of a keitai now. Besides a good share of iPhone users would be living in metropolis area.
Wow. I've had 'the latest Sharp mobile' for years now (on my fourth Sharp now) and I can't WAIT for the iPhone to be launched here so I can dump this cheap POS phone. Haven't you noticed that the newest Sharp phones are still made of shiny plastic???? My phone feels so cheap compared to my iPod Touch (and I can only imagine, the iPhone) ... A plastic phone ... how tacky.Then I can get my hands on the latest SHARP mobile and be happy with my phone![]()
...I haven't sent a single email from my new iMac since I got my iPod Touch, I use it for email these days ...
I recently emailed a Japanese friend of mine about using the iPod Touch for this purpose... specifically the typing and he said he feels just as comfortable using the iPod as he does his (Japanese) cell phone.
ME: I was just wondering what your experience has been with typing in Japanese on your iPod Touch. Is it more difficult than typing in English ?
My Friend: No, it's easy to type in Japanese with iPod Touch. I feel the same thing when I type Japanese with my cellphone. (It means easy for me.)
So it would seem to me from several comments here that the 'difficulty' is assumed and nothing more.
However the fact that Apple is willing to make different iPhones with differing technology specific for individual markets still presents the possibility of a different kind of iPhone for Canada.
I hope they put in Felica support in there cause I use it daily at the company cafeteria.
This will come but it will take time.
FeliCa is a trademark for what has become a standard known as NFC.
Many of us will already be using NFC compliant cards for public transport and security passes in buildings.
The first step is Bluetooth 2.1 introducing touch-to-pair. This requires an NFC reader. However it's only an optional part of the spec and Apple hasn't adopted any of Bluetooth 2.1 yet.
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.
My guess is that it will be (E)GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and UMTS (=W-CDMA) 850/2100 (including the +.5G speed-ups EDGE and HSDPA, of course), too.A dual-band 2100MHz/850MHz HSDPA handset with quad band EDGE will operate in all countries that Apple has a presence in worldwide. Only a single handset model is required from Apple.
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)
That's interesting. Two of my Japanese friends have told me that they find it relatively difficult to type in Japanese on the Touch, mainly because the conversion choices displayed are so tiny. Also, the Touch is kind of slow pulling up the conversions (try typing "tachikawa" and watch the Touch choke when it pulls up the kana and kanji after the first and second character) ...
I hope the speed of Japanese text entry doesn't put too many locals off, I'd really like to see the iPhone do well here (if only to guarantee that we get future models quickly!)![]()
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)
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.
Just wondering if there has been any other info about this recently ... ? Don't know how much longer I can wait for a decent phone to be sold here ...![]()