Thoughts on “SoftBank is going to carry the iPhone in Japan”

sqrPi Thoughts on SoftBank is going to carry the iPhone in Japan.Apple,Inc Geek| Written by Kay| 

This news is interesting partly because we liked the design of SoftBank’s HelloWorld webpage. It’s an interesting Flash-based webpage in vivid color. Here’s a screenshot. It’s interesting because we all agree that Japanese are great at designing consumer electronic device but get hampered by their softwares. In other word, their software sucks. That’s even true for their websites. Comaring NTT.com and SoftBank, and you will see why SoftBank’s HelloWorld webpage interests us.

And there’s more to this announcement not only because of the well-known fact that Japan’s network is 3G.

As we know there are several key items that the cellphones in Japan have, as a Japanese pointed out:

1. Strong built-in camera (say, 3 megapixel, considering many use camera phones as their main camera)

2. Digital TV tuner - the “One Seg” tuner is becoming almost a standard feature on all cell phones

3. Electronic cash/Edy/Felica/Mobile Suica - many people are using their mobile phones in Japan to board trains and purchase items at convenience stores and kiosks.

Does it mean the 2nd-gen iPhone will have some of those? Because in fact, Japan is a huge market for consumer electronics. For iPhone to succeed in Japan, the marketing team, the design team and also SoftBank itself have to bear those in mind.
No.1 and No.2 can be easily achieved. There’s is already an iPhone app that handles those 2D code.

It seems to me that the digital TV tuners are not likely to be added. It’s partly because it would take extra space and drain more battery, but most importantly, almost no other country except the Japanese like to watch TV in their handholds. The price would also be driven up if the tuner is to be added.
Therefore a third party TV tuner accessory is likely to be the way to go. In fact, I would very happy to see Apple make their own TV tuner accessory for the iPhone. EyeTV for the iPhone anyone?
Update: here’s an interesting research done by Macrumors member iAlan:

I just asked 15 of my co-workers (all Japanese) and got the following responses:

- 12 knew about the iPhone
- 9 said they are very interested with 6 of the 9 saying they would buy an iPhone ‘at some point within the next 12 months’
- 11 had TV capabilities on their current phones but only 2 watch TV more than 2-3 times a month while traveling to work
- 13 had “electronic cash” capabilities on their phones and only 1 has actually ever used this function
- None of the 15 specifically bought the phone they have because of the above 2 functions - the design, coverage and plan were the key reasons
- all 15 were not happy with their ‘mobile internet experiences’ with 10 saying this function, if good to use, would be an influence in buying behavior in the future



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