iPhone and Japan
Originally posted by DaveGee
I have one small question... What cellular provider you people think Apple is gonna make this phone compatible with?
As most of you know here in the US as well as in Europe and Japan Apple WILL have to choose!
Verizon? Cingular?? AT&T??? Sprint???? Europe????? Japan??????
That's a very good point.
When I heard some rumors about new PDA with phone capability by Apple a while back, I was skeptical about it because cell phone system widely varies over the world. As a Japanese local myself, I know that Japan is TOTALLY closed. Japan basically is the only country in which you can not use GSM network. I don't know what's wrong with us, but the networking system we use here is incompatible with anything else on this planet. And the fact is that there's no overseas phone manufacturers currently selling phones in Japan. All of them are Japanese companies like Sony (recentry started a joint venture with Ericsson), Panasonic, NEC, Sharp, Sanyo and Mitsubishi. DoCoMo, the biggest of cell phone carriers which is a subsidiary of a formerly government owned NTT and famous for iMode system, does not allow these phone companies to put their logos on the phones. DoCoMo brands them as their own products, although it's clearly know that the big pleyers makes them. So Apple probably won't choose juicy DoCoMo which does not allow them to put the Apple logo.
There was a rumor that Palm would introduce their wireless PDAs with a help from DoCoMo, the cell phone network giant, but failed to do so mainly because Japan has the most advanced wireless web/mail access system from cell phones like iMode (provide by DoCoMo), EZ-web (AU) and J-SKY (J-Phone). I think I've heard that HandSpring has attempted to sell that Springboard based phone to Japan but failed to do so as well for the same reason.
For me choosing the conventional GSM network makes sense because it's compatible with any countries except for Japan. But as far as I understand, Japan is one of the big markets for Apple. So it's kind of difficult to imagine Apple excluding Japan for iPhone.
But hey, we are thinking too much within a small box. I'm kind of imagining and hoping that Apple might do something totally revolutional. Like going for Voice-over-IP and/or WiFi. Who said it will be the traditional phone?! This makes much more sense to me now. Traditional cell phone network is too limiting and slow. And G3 networking is not there yet.
You guys think VoIP and/or WiFi would be a possiblity?
