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[Merged] iPhone "Flops" in Japan, Carriers Provide Free Phones With Activation

guys it's just a different market

everyone, and I mean everyone has those thin flip phones in japan. One huge reason that people fail to realize why the iPhone fails in japan is quite simple, it doesn't have a charm loop. You should see how many charms people in Japan have hanging from their phones.

add to that, the sheer lack of options

oh and cameraphones can take good pics ( the iphone blows in this regard)

sony Erricson have been taking great images for over 5 years

zlde0j.jpg
 
No real journalism

So Fox news follows that idiots piece on wired without checking sources. The two sources that the idiot from Wired corrected the B.S. hit trolling article that the so called Wired journalist (blogger) wrote.

Hayashi

Daiji Hirata
 
Theaser said:
I don't think you should say that if you have never been to Tokyo.
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As I clearly said in my post, I was speaking on what people who came here from Japan told me.

These same people have since told me that they think the iPhones size if anything would be its biggest foul point in Japan. Small phones are very popular there I guess.
 
cjm3113 said:
Small phones are very popular there I guess.
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Well...sort of. Their high-feature phones are very frequently ~20mm thick (think 1.8x iPhone) chunky clamshells. It's part of the way they fit the huge batteries/camera optics/TV antennae. On the flip side, you can get very svelte models as well if that's your thing.
 
i love how something is so revolutionary here, but is rejected and considered useless somewhere else. it just makes me jealous though
 
Theaser said:
I don't think you should say that if you have never been to Tokyo.
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Why?

What he said was what he heard from his Japanese friends.

slapppy said:
So Fox news follows that idiots piece on wired without checking sources. The two sources that the idiot from Wired corrected the B.S. hit trolling article that the so called Wired journalist (blogger) wrote.

Hayashi

Daiji Hirata
Click to expand...
Looks like the article is a bust. Reading it didn't make sense to me.

Thanks for the links.

sysiphus said:
Well...sort of. Their high-feature phones are very frequently ~20mm thick (think 1.8x iPhone) chunky clamshells. It's part of the way they fit the huge batteries/camera optics/TV antennae. On the flip side, you can get very svelte models as well if that's your thing.
Click to expand...
It's hard to generalize about the cell phones in Japan. The three major companies (docomo, AU and SoftBank) offer cell phones from the various manufacturers. Every 6 months or so the lineups are updated.

It does seem that the clamshells are popular. Although, the ones with the keyboards that slide out seem popular as well.
 
Erm, it's given away for free pretty much everywhere on the planet.

It's just not as popular in Japan where it's accepted practice to shop for a phone by comparing spec sheets.
 
panasonic P905i nearly have the same functions as iphone.
When they choose, they can't find any reason to purchase iphone especially the expensive apps charge.
but the most important is that iphone is not produced by Japan.
 
It probably has to do with the fact that the iPhone is way behind in technology and features of phones that have already been out in Japan for years. Japan is way ahead of us in phone tech and being the tech driven country Japan is go figure that iPhone wouldnt sell like hotcakes there.
 
I saw an update posted that said the Japanese guy quoted in the Wired story was actually misquoted... Actually, once they get used to the iPhone, they buy it just the same...
 
Visited a local electronics store tonight.

The Softbank counter was packed. Everyone was looking at the iPhone. I'm sure that the discount has spurred some interest. However, that counter is usually busy.

The iPhone is a great choice for many. It has a great interface that most everyone can use right away.

I can't believe how complicated some cell phone interfaces have become. Just to make a simple phone call to someone in your contact list, on some phones, can be a chore and not fun at all.
 
It is a mathematical impossibility that anyone with any decent sense of technological innovation can hate the iPhone. It is the best mobile device ever invented by man. Period.
 
Theaser said:
The Xbox 360 IS doing well, but just not in Japan.

Microsoft was so desperate they had a complete makeover of the Xbox 360 OS to make it look like a Wii. It was horrible and I despise my Xbox 360's operating system.
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you hate the new OS? i don't mind it really, the whole avatar thing isss a bit unneeded though.
 
You know, for years I've been reading and hearing about these mythical über phones in Japan & Korea, that are supposedly light years ahead of anything in the west, without ever seeing any footage to confirm or corroborate these myths.
Is it the devices themselves, or the services that their carriers provide, that's apparently so wonderful?
 
Mobile TV is a lot easier when you have a population density like Japan does. You don't waste a lot of money on towers that cover broad areas but few people.

Japan's telephone companies may have developed differently as well. The US has had landline copper wire all over the place for decades, and AT&T spent tons of money laying that stuff to reach all of these rural customers. I don't blame them for concentrating on that aspect more than wireless.

Real telephone competition didn't exist until you had multiple companies building different cellular networks on towers. Naturally, they needed to pick incompatible standards because it would just be way too simple to choose one and work together. So instead of all the wireless companies working to make better networks that all work together, you've got the one AT&T and T-Mobile use and the one Sprint and Verizon use. Hoo-rah. I know little about Japan, but I would bet that they don't have all these competing standards for wireless. They instead spend money on added services like mobile TV and mobile e-mail.
 
BergerFan said:
You know, for years I've been reading and hearing about these mythical über phones in Japan & Korea, that are supposedly light years ahead of anything in the west, without ever seeing any footage to confirm or corroborate these myths.
Is it the devices themselves, or the services that their carriers provide, that's apparently so wonderful?
Click to expand...

It's a combination. The hardware in some of the über-phones is incredible (the screens/cameras especially), but the services are good as well (1seg & great high-speed connectivity). With that said, the carrier restrictions/lock-in are at least as bad as in the US.
 
Michael CM1 said:
So instead of all the wireless companies working to make better networks that all work together, you've got the one AT&T and T-Mobile use and the one Sprint and Verizon use. Hoo-rah. I know little about Japan, but I would bet that they don't have all these competing standards for wireless.
Click to expand...

Actually, where you mentioned that AT&T & T-Mobile use 3G UMTS+HSPA and Verizon and Sprint use 3G CDMA2000+EV-DO, Japan has the same problem. SoftBank and DoCoMo use UMTS+HSPA and AU uses CDMA2000+EV-DO.

Does anyone know if Sprint still runs Nextel's old iDen network? That's yet another one that makes the US wireless situation suck.
 
Stratus Fear said:
Actually, where you mentioned that AT&T & T-Mobile use 3G UMTS+HSPA and Verizon and Sprint use 3G CDMA2000+EV-DO, Japan has the same problem. SoftBank and DoCoMo use UMTS+HSPA and AU uses CDMA2000+EV-DO.

Does anyone know if Sprint still runs Nextel's old iDen network? That's yet another one that makes the US wireless situation suck.
Click to expand...

I was purely guessing, and it shows, huh? Problem is apparently so did the person who wrote the article, as some have posted above. Here's a post from AppleInsider:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/02/28/japanese_hate_for_iphone_all_a_big_mistake.html

My point about Japan being more densely populated still holds true, just as many parts of Europe are. But my lack of knowledge and the original article's just plain stupidity prove why a lot of what's out there isn't "news."
 
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