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Seems a bit (overly) biased and opinionated to call the survey useless. Most people (outside of MacRumors regulars) would say that most page 1 rumors are useless. Yeah, they could have said the 9% part instead of the 91%, but it all equals the same thing.

That's not why its useless.

It's useless because you can't draw either (9% of 91%) conclusion from it. You can't draw any meaningful conclusion from this survey.

The rough equivalent would be citing this poll: http://www.macpolls.com/?poll_id=39 to say that 91.61% of the world population is male.

arn
 
What's the big deal about having a user replaceable battery, it only matters if you keep your phone long enough to need to change it??
 
What's the big deal about having a user replaceable battery, it only matters if you keep your phone long enough to need to change it??

Or if your battery goes bad you don't have to send your phone in for repair/replace your whole phone, you just put a new battery in.
 
I don't think that the replaceable battery is such a big deal in Japan. Most people here (I currently live in Japan) use external second batteries to recharge their phones. You can already buy the external second batteries for the Ipods so no problem here with the Iphone.
I'll be in the line at the softbank store on the 11th.
 
Thanks, Arn, for a classic example of marketing run amok. Aside from the unknown population sample, is the fact that "not planning to buy right now" has been twisted to mean "won't buy" while the 9% who are planning to buy appear to be viewed as maybes, and the statement that a shift from 9.6% to 8.9% over a sample size of 400 is an indication that demand is "weakening and going negative".

I see this as another hatchet job by Japanese consumer electronics companies (and their trade mags). They did the same thing over the MacBook Air-- "we would have built it better". There's a definite rivalry between the Japanese makers and the one American company that can match their attention to style.

I don't think you understand how polls and statistics work. Obviously they can't poll everyone in Japan. They can extrapolate results within a certain margin of error from a sampling of the population - the more people they poll, the smaller the margin of error. How do you think they come up with results from other polls like the president's popularity ratings? Nobody I know has ever been asked if they approve or disapprove of the president, yet they can say that 70 percent of Americans disapprove of him.
I'm not sure you fully understand how polls work... If the poll was taken over the internet, promoted through, say, something like Google AdSense which would make it turn up with higher prevalence on sites such as macrumors.co.jp, then the results can not be generalized in the way you describe.

The fact that this was an internet poll makes it suspect to begin with. The fact that it was an internet poll that only pulled in 400 responses makes it pretty much useless.

To the point that this posting should probably be called "Useless Survey"...
Did anyone actually read the article?

It's not 9% of all of japan planning to buy an iphone. It's 9% of people who choose to answer a poll about cell phones that plan to buy an iphone. And they only polled 402 people.

So congrats. 40 people plan to buy the iphone in japan.

statistics are fun. (and useless)

The fact that they could only get 402 responses to an internet forum targeting internet users aged 18-49 says to me that the interest in the iphone is very low, and what interest there is, is pretty negative.
So, I was in full agreement with you when you were saying you can't draw any conclusions from this poll. Where I started to disagree is where you started to draw conclusions from this poll... ;)
 
Japan does not have GSM networks. The reason the new iPhone will work is because it also runs on UMTS/HSDPA networks (850, 1900, 2100 MHz). To my understanding, the current iPhone does not work in Japan.

Thanks for elaborating and correcting my misunderstanding.

Question 1 - does that mean that the 3G iPhone will work in both the US and Japan by supporting enough bands?

Question 2 - if there is no fall back to a 2G network in Japan, will that burn through the battery faster as a result?
 
Thanks for elaborating and correcting my misunderstanding.

Question 1 - does that mean that the 3G iPhone will work in both the US and Japan by supporting enough bands?

Question 2 - if there is no fall back to a 2G network in Japan, will that burn through the battery faster as a result?

Q1: Yes, the iPhone 3g will work in Japan
Q2: Ofcause, you'll only have 5 hours of talk time (with 2G you have up to 10)
 
I'm not sure you fully understand how polls work... If the poll was taken over the internet, promoted through, say, something like Google AdSense which would make it turn up with higher prevalence on sites such as macrumors.co.jp, then the results can not be generalized in the way you describe.

The fact that this was an internet poll makes it suspect to begin with. The fact that it was an internet poll that only pulled in 400 responses makes it pretty much useless.

To the point that this posting should probably be called "Useless Survey"...

So, I was in full agreement with you when you were saying you can't draw any conclusions from this poll. Where I started to disagree is where you started to draw conclusions from this poll... ;)

the fact that more people of a particular demographic are responding to the poll is just another factor that increases the margin of error. Just like arn's example of the useless gender poll, it's taking a sampling of a particular group of people and not taking into account anyone else. Unless you poll everyone in the world (and they answer honestly), there will be some margin of error.
 
Surveys

Mark Twain once said, "...There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics..."

I like how they tout the data like it is current. It wasn't based on the iPhone 3G? Then who cares?

This is just like how Sprint is promoting their "iPhone Killer" Instinct. Their little videos show their new phone going up against the first iPhone. (Gotta read the fine print) They even show that the iPhone doesn't have true GPS. We're talking about a new promotion of the product. They just came out with something that may already be obsolete against the iPhone 3G.

Lets keep it current with the stats:)
 
Who has heard of Apple in Japan?

One major reason why "those polled" said they won't buy an iPhone is partly because most Japanese have never even heard of Apple or the iPhone. During the opening of the Ginza Apple Store, the most common questions I heard while waiting in line were, "What is Apple?" and "What is this line for?" (people there love to line up if others are doing so). They are so insular and incredibly techno-tarded; not an insult, just the truth. Japan exports a lot of tech but the people are very uneducated about technology and computers in general. As far as them "lining up specs" when buying a phone, that's hardly true either. The major push is for higher res cameras; second to that is the overall cosmetic design. Young girls push the phone market more than any other demo. Smart phones in Japan are a rarity. Through living there for 4 years I have yet to see one Blackberry, Treo etc...never mind any phones from Motorola or Nokia. If 9% did actually feel interested in buying an iPhone...or had even heard of the iPhone before the survey, then I would call that a MASSIVE success.
 
Personally, my guess is that the iPhone will be somewhat popular among foreigners (especially Westerners) living in Japan, but not so popular among Japanese people. Even die-hard :apple: Mac & iPod fans are mostly giving the iPhone a pass here.

If you read some of the early reports from the Japanese press, one of the things they are all angry about is the fact that the iPhone has handwriting recognition for Chinese characters when in Chinese language mode, but won't do it in Japanese mode (even though they use mostly the same characters). Japan and China are like fierce "sibling rivals," and giving a very useful feature to the Chinese but omitting it for the Japanese without any explanation is like a slap in the face to a lot of Japanese people.

The lack of MMS, which is heavily used by all the other Japanese celphone providers, as well as the lack of video calling (not super popular here but a fairly important checkbox feature to have), Felica/"Saifu Keitai" (aka Wallet Phone, RFID money card/train pass), and 1seg TV (mobile HD broadcast offered by all major TV networks), results in the iPhone comparing poorly to even the free throwaway phones you can get from any of the Japanese providers.

Yes. The iPhone's character recognition, no matter how good for having been made by an American company, will by nature of the touch screen have to operate differently from that which people are used to in Japan. Because advanced features have been over here in Japan so long, people are accustomed to doing and expecting things that they will miss or find strange on the iPhone. I own the old iPhone for use in the US, but whereas American smartphones have a following that the iPhone targeted, in Japan those smartphones look too stupid for words. So the iPhone is a cool phone that can do some calendar and email and that kind of thing well, but as you point out, high-end cells for the Japanese serve as credit card, train ticket, TV, mp3 player, and so on....

The saving grace, if any, for the iPhone might be that among young people, especially girls, there is a recent phenomenon of having multiple cells. I'm not even sure exactly why, other than that they can (esp college kids earning money for the first time). As an accessorizing phone they use primarily as an iPod and to chat for cheap/free with a girlfriend/boyfriend or family or other package deal, there may be enough demand that the iPhone doesn't just flop completely.

That lacking the handwriting recognition... what were they thinking?
 
ummm...

even the iPhone is years behind in terms of cell phone technology in Japan. They have 8MP cameras in their phones, high-res games, touch screens AND dual keypads.

Will the iPhone allow people to access their anime/gameshows/hentai? How about interactivity with their Pachinko machines? Heck, picture messages from one japanese schoolgirl to another? Video conferencing on the train?

Forget the iPhone, the entire US cell phone market is years behind.
 
One major reason why "those polled" said they won't buy an iPhone is partly because most Japanese have never even heard of Apple or the iPhone. During the opening of the Ginza Apple Store, the most common questions I heard while waiting in line were, "What is Apple?" and "What is this line for?" (people there love to line up if others are doing so). They are so insular and incredibly techno-tarded; not an insult, just the truth. Japan exports a lot of tech but the people are very uneducated about technology and computers in general. As far as them "lining up specs" when buying a phone, that's hardly true either. The major push is for higher res cameras; second to that is the overall cosmetic design. Young girls push the phone market more than any other demo. Smart phones in Japan are a rarity. Through living there for 4 years I have yet to see one Blackberry, Treo etc...never mind any phones from Motorola or Nokia. If 9% did actually feel interested in buying an iPhone...or had even heard of the iPhone before the survey, then I would call that a MASSIVE success.

Didn't Motorola make the RAZR? That stuff was over here a while back.

I don't fully disagree with the Japanese being "techno-tarded," although the word sounds silly and a little like you're disparaging people who aren't computer geeks or, as the word suggests, don't know techno music. :confused:

As you say, girls push the market, and businessmen just want to use the damn phone (smartphones=farce in Japan), basically, so the iPhone has no clear target demographic other than Mac users, if that. There are many computer geeks who love to figure out tech stuff that might lament the lack of tech education, but these are the same people that can stand to figure out windows computers, and besides, Apple has always been running the line that computers should be intuitive and users should not have to educate themselves, as you put it.

I'm afraid 9% is pretty ambitious. Probably less than 1%, my guess is less than 0.5%. But then, I'm afraid it'll be laughed out. After all, what you call insular is a tech culture that, though perhaps not everyone is a geek, has its own strengths, history, and ubiquitousness. For Apple to come out with something that works great compared to crappy US phones and then slap some add-on software to make it at least usable in other countries... let me put it this way -- the American way is tech-tarded.
 
That's not why its useless.

It's useless because you can't draw either (9% of 91%) conclusion from it. You can't draw any meaningful conclusion from this survey.

The rough equivalent would be citing this poll: http://www.macpolls.com/?poll_id=39 to say that 91.61% of the world population is male.

arn

My conclusion is that polls are dumb. Even when done right. Because the people that do polls are interested in the results. So they'll screw it up. And the people who answer the poll wanted to answer. So they're biased.

I think we should get unwilling interrogators to torture unsuspecting victims for their market wants.
 
Apple has invested a huge amount of labor and mindshare to "check the box" on Japanese access to iPhone. If only this is a "stretch goal" with the same uptake as countries flocking to the platform, that 9% could readily ramp to 18% or 27%.

But even if not, who cares? The rest of the world will make it a small element of the noise.

Rocketman
 
Japan is a culture of spec sheets. When consumers go to electronics stores to buy a cellphone, they frequently line up the specifications side by side to compare them before deciding which one to buy.
If only Americans would do this more often, the additional competitive pressure might lead to better products. When we base our purchase decisions only on ads, without looking at what we are getting, we often aren't getting the best product for the job.

Does that mean we can't consider how cool an Apple product is? Not at all. Just put it on the iPhone spec sheet:
design: Apple=elegant, others=acceptable
coolness factor: Apple=huge, others=medium
incredibly easy application shopping?: Apple=yes, others=maybe or no​
Then look at all the specs, side-by-side, and see if the iPhone is for you.
 
It's 8.9% of *respondents*, which are "Internet users aged primarily 20 to 49". So, it's not 8.9% of the entire Japanese population. Nice try.

By the way, I remember there were several Apple-favorable internet surveys published not so long ago but Apple fanatics were all welcoming those without question. Isn't fanboism idiotic?
 
That lacking the handwriting recognition... what were they thinking?

While HWR for Japanese isn't there yet, the iPhone does support two other VERY intuitive Japanese input methods (intelligent romaji entry and a kana pad):

https://www.macrumors.com/iphone/2008/05/05/japanese-input-keyboards-on-iphone-2-0/

The kana pad is very intuitive and works the exact same way text entry does on current japanese cell phones.

In the words of someone (else) from japan:

Yeah, this is GREAT news for a Japanese release - the existing entry method SUCKS big time, incredibly slow and cumbersome (mainly due to the ridiculously tiny conversion selection area) ... These new entry systems are light years ahead of what are currently available and will really help to guarantee a successful iPhone launch here in Japan. Kudos, Apple!
 
Felica/"Saifu Keitai" (aka Wallet Phone, RFID money card/train pass), and 1seg TV (mobile HD broadcast offered by all major TV networks), results in the iPhone comparing poorly to even the free throwaway phones you can get from any of the Japanese providers.

Thats basically it IMO. No OneSeg, no Suica/Keitai does it in for some... we'll see it probably can sell to those who don't need it in thier phone...... but there are lots of region specific features.... lots of things like "smilies" (Japanese users have literally hundreds of facial expressions using characters and images), language prediction.... we'll see how softbank can customize things for Japan..... too bad they couldn't negotiate a felica chip in that contract......
 
the fact that more people of a particular demographic are responding to the poll is just another factor that increases the margin of error. Just like arn's example of the useless gender poll, it's taking a sampling of a particular group of people and not taking into account anyone else. Unless you poll everyone in the world (and they answer honestly), there will be some margin of error.
A poll's error margin is related to the population being studied. In this case, the population being studied is not "Japan", it's some subset of Japan. We don't know what subset. If there is any correlation between the selecting criteria for the subset and the response (people who clicked on "win a free iPhone" for example, or people who visited the Au forums) then the results are almost impossible to generalize. You'd need to know how to convert the likelihoods of a response from the sub-population to the larger population which might be achievable through good historical data if you can show the relationship has been consistent enough over time-- but no such historical data can be available for a product this young.

Ask ten Texans what country they'd most like to live and raise kids in. Then tell me how to calculate the margins for error on the question "What country do most people in the world find most appealing?"

Ask 400 white men if they've ever been discriminated against and then tell me how many black women have been.

Margins for error are statistically rigorous values, just like the rest of the results. Almost all standard formulas assume a truly random sample. If you don't have a random sample, then you need to know both the correlation values between populations and *their* margins for error.
If only Americans would do this more often, the additional competitive pressure might lead to better products. When we base our purchase decisions only on ads, without looking at what we are getting, we often aren't getting the best product for the job.

Does that mean we can't consider how cool an Apple product is? Not at all. Just put it on the iPhone spec sheet:
design: Apple=elegant, others=acceptable
coolness factor: Apple=huge, others=medium
incredibly easy application shopping?: Apple=yes, others=maybe or no​
Then look at all the specs, side-by-side, and see if the iPhone is for you.
It's not what you'd expect. It's not competitive pressure, it's a checklist. When you sit down to design a new product, you pull out the top three last generation products and make a list of all their features. You take the union of those sets, add a feature or two for uniqueness (which will then become standard across the board next generation) and make generational improvements on everything else.

No sense suggesting that the feature buried 3 menus down get removed. Oh no-- we *must* have that. All phones have that and it is most important that this feature be included.

They do make it work somehow though. There's no denying that their consumer electronics are top tier. Part of that is because so many of those features are included but buried out of the way. It passes the checklist test, but minimizes interference.

This is a totally different strategy to what Apple pursues. Apple takes the list of common features, decides what can be made to coexist in a usable way, and then jettisons the rest. The result is a device with fewer features, but whose features are all used.
 
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