Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Rumors, Odds and ends, Apple, iPhone
DoCoMo to carry iPhone in Japan?
The iPhone continues its trek across the world-- the next country to have a rumored release is Japan, and sources there say that DoCoMo will likely be the company to release the Gadget of the Year there. But both NTT DoCoMo and Softbank Mobile have spoken with Apple, and DoCoMo, says a local news agency, might not want to be as generous with sharing the subscriber revenue as some other companies Apple has worked with before.Then again, is Japan really that excited about the iPhone anyway? They've had some pretty awesome personal communication devices for years, and while the iPhone is definitely a quality device, my suspicion is that it won't stick out nearly as high above the rest of the options over there. Of course, on the third hand, Apple may consider the Eastern market all bonus cash anyway, and may take a dive on the subscription rates just to get what they can.
All speculation at this point, of course-- it's up to DoCoMo and Apple to decide what they want to do and how they want to do it.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Edgar said 7:24PM on 12-19-2007
i thought docomo was CDMA?
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karan said 4:17PM on 12-20-2007
W-CDMA (3G); it uses a USIM much like the ye olde GSM sims. More info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W-CDMA
Travis said 7:32PM on 12-19-2007
Not entirely, but they *are* only 3G:
http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_jp.shtml
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Eric Blair said 7:36PM on 12-19-2007
During the iPhone rollout @MWSF last year, I believe either Jobs or Schiller said that the Japanese version might be a CDMA version since that was the dominant standard in the country.
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Eric Blair said 7:38PM on 12-19-2007
Er, @MWSF this year, at least for a few weeks.
Victor said 7:51PM on 12-19-2007
Don't forget LATAM the fastest growing cellphone market.
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Kenji F said 10:44PM on 12-19-2007
And don't forget that Apple actually doesn't care about Latin America. None of the 3 phone operators in my country has been contacted by Apple, and the "Mothership" hasn't said anything about it.
Karan said 4:22PM on 12-20-2007
LatAm might be a fast growing and large market, but the realities of economics is that it's less likely to be targeted by Apple's expensive product. Same goes for India - there's a large proliferation of mobiles, but they're mostly in the cheap end of the scale ($50 outright to buy, that kind of thing)
antitrust311 said 8:53PM on 12-19-2007
I have lived in Japan (15 min from Tokyo) for 4 years now and the cellphones here aren't as "Cool" as everyone in the USA thinks. The TV feature is a total gimmic. Wow I can watch 10 channels of NHK, which is as poorly done as public access in the USA. The only cool feature I think that cellphones have here is the ability to be used as a train ticket. Most cellphones here just like the USA have poorly implemented UI, lock you into a 2 year contract for 50min of talk time a month for 6,000Yen. Tack on 300 Yen for every other feature, want internet access 300 yen extra a month, want text thats another 300 Yen, want to be able to call the USA oh yeah that's another 300 Yen. This is just to have the ability to use these services. Phones here may have more features but to use them you pay out the nose to get them and even more to use them. The Industry here could learn a thing or two about pricing from American Cell providers.
I know all my friends are anxiously awaiting a 3G iPhone to hit the shores here in Japan!!
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podgy said 9:34PM on 12-19-2007
I totally agree. Phones here in Japan absolutely suck UI wise and the iPhone will ride on the ipod halo effect and make tons of sales.
English Teachers Go Home said 4:24PM on 12-20-2007
Actually, for Japanese-language input, the GUI is outstanding. 100 million Japanese cell phone users can't be wrong.
But if you're an out-of-work Nova teacher trying to text your friends the address of a Roppongi pub in English, yeah, the GUI does suck.
Peter Payne said 10:28PM on 12-19-2007
Really hope AU gets it, they are a better company, although they have copied Apple too much in the past with their (really bad) music service to want to give that up now, I guess. NTT DoCoMo is a terrible company, really botched the BlackBerry and other similar phones, so I hope AU or possibly Softbank get it. One reason why there's less excitement for the phone is that you can actually type faster in Japanese on a keypad, due to a quirk of the language, hence only the gaijin (foreigners) will really be chomping at the bit for something they can type on and use. Hope they keep the price down, as no phones cost $800 here. Best to keep it as low as possible if they want it to do well.
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Meatleg said 4:40AM on 12-20-2007
i was thinking that they might not do well with typing japanese on the iPhone keyboard, but i have used the iPod touch to type japanese and it works great. there wont be any problem with the lack of a physical keyboard...
and no, typing japanese isnt faster on a current cell phone keypad than on a keyboard, its just a different method. if you dont know HOW to type on a keyboard, then maybe the cellphone is faster to type, but if you do both well, the speed of input is not dependent on the machine...
antitrust311 said 10:37PM on 12-19-2007
I guess that is one other nice thing about Japanese cellphones. You can get one them on the cheap. The service is just so over priced. There is no way it will be AU. It will be Docomo or Softbank. Softbank may not have the greatest reception but their service and pricing plans are more like that in the USA and that is a good thing!!
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JH2071 said 10:57PM on 12-19-2007
Yeah, I want to echo the sentiments that phones in Japan aren't as great as everyone might be led to believe.
The "awesome features" that everyone talks about are only awesome because of the way Japan is. Sure, you might be able to use your phone to buy stuff at a convienence store in lieu of a credit card, but this is only really useful because Japan is a cash society. Whereas in America I use my card everywhere and only carry cash in specific situations, in Japan, I carry ludicrous amounts of cash around on a daily basis. (If I don't have about $100 in my wallet, I head down to the ATM.) And if you live in one of the big cities, like Tokyo or Nagoya and you can use your phone to keep track of your commuter ticket or whatever, that's grand-- but it doesn't make your phone "cool," and it's not a feature a US consumer would care about.
To sell the iPhone in Japan, they need to convince DoCoMo that its easy to build Japan-specific applications into it and then work on perfecting touch-screen Japanese input (since most people message here, not talk).
Right now, the iPhone is the most feature-perfect phone on the market, IMO. But to appeal to the Japanese, they have to come up with a way to sell its usefulness to a people who have notoriously bad taste. (IE they want it to interface and download gimmicky bs with every stupid photo, vending, washing machine, etc. in Japan)
It's a great time to launch it here, IMO. Especially with the Japanese computer market diving. (People are ditching computers for cell phones; I conjecture that this is happening because the internet isn't Japanese enough for most people here.)
Mat said 3:18AM on 12-20-2007
Japan IS waiting for iPhone and am sure it will be a big thing over here. Phones here might have awsome features but with their clumsy UI and poor design iPhone will win.. and of course Safari on iPhone rocks not that pseudo-browsers on japanese phones
Matt
http://iphone-japan.blogspot.com
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Meatleg said 4:31AM on 12-20-2007
gawd i hope it isnt AU
please let it be SoftBank
and yes, if you want to know when the iPhone will be 3G for sure? it is when it is released in Japan.... because 2G phones ARE still around, but they are realllllllly rare and arent sold anymore...
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Mark said 10:05AM on 12-20-2007
waiting next gen iPhone, wow
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Yoshi said 2:03PM on 12-20-2007
I'm also echoing some comments earlier about Japanese cellphones. I'm Japanese, and I regularly go to Japan, but I can tell you that the UIs on these cellphones are horrendous. Yes, there are a lot of features, a lot of them really useless, and they're usually buried under a confusing set of menus.
Also, internet usage is still charged per kilobyte in most cases - I don't know of any unlimited internet use plan in Japan.
I've used the current iPhone Japanese input (go to a Japanese page and when you enter any text on a form, a Japanese keyboard will appear if you set it up right in the International Settings), and it's pretty nice. It could be faster, but it has predictive Japanese text, and it works pretty well. In fact, I find it easier to enter Japanese text than English because the predictive text input works so well.
So I think the iPhone might be a nice offering for Japan.
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kil said 11:57PM on 12-20-2007
I always knew the 3G iPhone would come around the time it came out in Japan-- no way in hell any Japanese carrier would go around putting old EDGE cells like O2 did in England. It's 3G or nothing.
Surprisingly enough, even the goofy RAZR did OK when it came out in Japan at the end of '06-- the fact that it was something different was enough to push it, even though even by American standards at the time it was a dated phone. I think the iPhone's uniqueness is a key selling point-- keep in mind young people over there spend 50, 100 USD on a t-shirt just to have an "original" and "limited" design, and cell phones are partially considered a fashion accessory, so some'll buy it simply to be cool and unique.
There are unlimited data plans-- at least for DoCoMo and AU, I would know since I had them. Granted, they're expensive; about 4000 yen (roughly 38 USD or so), but they exist. You pay that and you're covered for internet/text messaging/picture mail/etc. so depending on usage it can actually shape up to be not so bad.
And actually, (again, as far as DoCoMo/AU goes) they aren't that bad with the contracts-- most of the contracts are on the basis of opt-in monthly discounts on your usage bill; and even then, the cancellation fees aren't *that* bad.
Overall, the Japanese input on the Japanese phones are pretty good-- I personally like Sharp's IME the best. But yeah, English input isn't that good, but I didn't really text in English anyway, so I didn't care.
Having used both the iPhone Japanese IME and regular Japanese phones' IME, I personally like the iPhone IME better, but it is rather different, and most Japanese, havint not used keyboard style input before, may have trouble taking to it because it is rather different. But, it is a matter of taste, and you get used to it rather fast.
Overall, I like the iPhone even more than the Japanese phones mainly because of the UI-- hell, I had visual voicemail a year ago with my DoCoMo 903SH, but it was a pain in the rear to use; having said that, I'll miss having my train pass integrated and using my phone to buy stuff at vending machines/convenience stores.
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