TG Daily (via Fortune) is reporting that Japanese market research company BCN's latest rankings of cellphone sales in Japan are showing that Apple's smartphone is the the current market leader in that country.

I did a quick check at BCN this afternoon while writing this post, and the iPhone 3GS 32GB is listed in first place in sales (see screenshot at right), with the iPhone 3GS 16GB in second place. The 3GS was just introduced in Japan on June 26th, and the sales figures are from the week of June 22 - 28. BCN's source of data includes point-of-sale information from many of Japan's largest electronics retailers, including Amazon Japan, Eiden, Bic Camera, K's Denki, and Best Denki.

Akky Akimoto at Asiajin is providing some perspective on the numbers. It's not unusual for a new phone to jump to the top of the list as it is released. As he notes, the Sony Network Walkman was #1 in the BCN ranking of music players at one time in 2005, but for the complete year, Apple iPod had a 60% share of the Japanese market.

Still, this is good news for Apple, and as Mr. Akimoto says, "Becoming No. 1 even for a week is better than never being No. 1..."

If you happen to be enrolling in Aoyama Gakuin University's School of Social Informatics in Tokyo this year, make sure to stop by the admissions office to pick up your free iPhone -- the school made a deal with Softbank Corporation, the iPhone's vendor in Japan, to give the phones to 550 students for school usage. But oh, there is one catch: they're also going to use the phones' GPS to track students, and make sure they're attending class on time.

It looks like skipping class is an issue -- the students at the school, despite having to answer an attendance check and/or hand in an attendance card, are still skipping out on class and having their classmates cover them. But apparently university officials think the iPhone plan will work better, because students will be less inclined, they believe, to pass off their iPhone to a buddy.

Need to keep track of truant students? There is, apparently, an app for that.

[via Ars]

Here's an interesting idea. The Mainichi Daily News is reporting that Japan's Aoyama Gakuin University has distributed 550 iPhone 3Gs to staff and students so that they can use the phone's GPS capabilities to monitor class attendance. In fact, the school will cover the basic charges so that the students aren't required to absorb the extra financial burden.

That seems like an awfully expensive way to accomplish what my sixth grade teacher, Sr. Dolores, did by shouting, "Caolo!" and waiting for my "Here!", but a major university has different needs (and budgets) than a tiny elementary school in Scranton.

We've seen similar large-scale iPhone adoption recently at University of Missouri's Journalism School and Abilene Christian University. Good luck to everyone involved.

[Via MacDailyNews]

Fukubukuro, or "Mystery Bag," is a Japanese New Year's Day tradition during which merchants sell sealed bags of various items at a substantial discount, often as high as 50%. Apple participated this year, and one lucky shopper, Justin, blogged his experience.

For the approximate equivalent of $384US, Justin received

• an 8 GB iPod touch
• Nike iPod sensor and armband
• Logitech Pure-Fi Anywhere2 speaker set
• Cool, re-useable bag (at right)
• Commemorative T-shirt
• 2009 calendar

Quite a haul! Shoppers lined up at midnight on January 2nd for a chance to buy one of Apple's Mystery Bags. I'm thinking that US retailers need to adopt this tradition.

[Via ifoAppleStore]

Fortune's Apple 2.0 blog has the skinny on why Japan is so hot on Apple lately -- apparently Steve Jobs' little company has seen sales rise 39% in the land of the rising sun, even after a drop the last year.

Why is this? Apple's own report says iPods, Macs, and MacBooks are the culprits -- sales of Macs specifically are jumping up the charts. At the same time, reports are saying that sales of the iPhone have slowed there after a big burst at debut (while sales here are still through the roof).

Seems like there's an upsurge on American electronics in Japan in general. Any of you armchair analysts want to guess why Apple is doing better there?

The land of Hello Kitty is also the land of the iPhone.

Here in the US, we only have 2 or 3 magazines that cover the Mac, and they usually throw in coverage about the iPhone. Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine is coming out with a special iPhone magazine called iPhone Life. But for our Japanese friends, many iPhone-specific magazines have been available for over a year.

In the photo at right, you can see 4 of the mags that were found recently in a Tokyo camera shop. One commenter to a Macenstein post reported seeing 6 different iPhone magazines in a small "Kwik-E-Mart" on one of the tinier Japanese islands.

Apparently the content of the magazines is quite similar, with articles about jailbreaking the 3G being popular. Would you buy an iPhone-specific magazine? Take our poll!

[via Amarinalameda and Macenstein]

A brief report from Reuters this morning said Japan's trade ministry claimed three fires had been caused by defectively hot iPod nano batteries.

Nobody was injured in the fires.

The government said in a statement that Apple had two other reported cases where people were burned by their iPod nanos. The defective nanos, they said, were sold between September 2005 and September 2006.

Japan's quasi-governmental product safety commission will investigate the incidents with Apple's cooperation, the trade ministry said.

Although the iPhone and iPod touch were designed with your finger in mind, for those who have trouble controlling the screen (or who have long, styled fingernails), there is the iPhone Japanese Touch Stylus.

The stylus has a flexible tip that mimics your finger's capacitive ability to control the objects on the screen. The tip is flexible, allowing for easy dragging without gouging your screen. It also includes a handy SIM eject tool.

The stylus is imported from Japan, and is available in silver or black. Both colors are $14.99 from ThinkGeek.

[Via iPhoneIndia]

Indie developer Rory Prior expects to release version 1.0 of his iKanji application this coming Thursday, he announced today.

iKanji is a tool for anyone learning Japanese, and combines meaning, reading and writing training and tests. Over 2,000 Kanji characters and 20,000 example words are included. This is an app for advanced learners who already have a grasp of the hiragana and katakana characters (which are covered in Rory's existing iKana app).

Until release, iKanji is still in beta and Rory is still accepting beta testers, with priority given to students. If you're interested, let him know sharpish. Pre-orders are also being taken, and they qualify for a 10% discount on the standard price of €20 (about $30).

Rory also makes photo gallery maker InstantGallery, and news reader NewsLife.

For years, legislators in Japan have wanted a portion of the price of a digital recording device (up to 3%) to go to recording companies, songwriters and artists. The so-called "iPod tax" has met opposition from electronics manufacturers, as you could imagine.

However, it looks like it's not going to happen. A group failed to create an agreement yet again this week, prompting official Masafumi Kiyota to say that "...there is virtually no hope for getting the legislation passed." Certainly good news for consumers.

Other electronic devices like minidisk players and DVD recorders have a copyright tax built into the price tag in Japan. The logic (if you want to call it that) is that consumers will use these devices to illegally acquire copyrighted material, so why not have them pay for it before hand, as a preemptive strike? Sounds to me like someone has contempt for their customers.

With the release of the iPhone 3G, Apple will be in a completely new cell phone market in Japan. Apple recently posted a new iPhone 3G Guided Tour on the Japanese Apple website, undoubtedly to get the Japanese warmed up to the iPhone. While there are no new apparent features shown, Apple does show off the character recognition (which is really slick when you see it in action).

It is still neat to watch, even if you don't understand Japnese. You can view this video on the Japanese iPhone website.

[via MacRumors]

According to the blog iPhone in Japan, Softbank will be offering the iPhone 3G to its customers starting at ¥23,040 (≈$214) for the 8GB model. The 16GB model will cost ¥34,560 (≈$321).

Service for the iPhone will be offered under Softbank's White Plan, but will be available under Blue and Orange plans as well. Users will be required to sign a two-year contract, and the cost of the handset will be spread out over the 24-month period.

You can read Softbank's press release (in Japanese) on their site.

Thanks, evilboy!

A survey of 402 Japanese internet users aged 20 to 49 conducted by a company called iSHARE suggests that less than a tenth of the market is interested in buying an iPhone. iPhone 3G is set to debut in Japan and about six dozen other countries starting July 11.

The survey was conducted shortly after SoftBank Mobile announced it would offer the iPhone in Japan, but two days before the Worldwide Developer Conference announcement of the iPhone 3G. How that skews the results, I'm not sure.

Of the people surveyed, 36 said they were planning to purchase an iPhone. iSHARE determined, based on other questions it asked, that the iPhone's non-replaceable battery could be weakening purchasing intent.

[Via TechOn]

The internationalization of the iPhone continues as SoftBank Mobile, Japan's third-largest mobile operators, has announced that it has signed an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in the "Land of the Rising Sun" later this year.

Although not detailed in the press release, I expect that the Japanese iPhone will be very different, internally, from its counterparts from other parts of the world. Not only will the phone have to be W-CDMA (GSM is not deployed in Japan, though some other SoftBank phones are dual-band GSM/W-CDMA for international roaming), there may be other locks tying the phone to the carrier.

Update: To clarify, the next generation iPhone will be 3G, or UMTS based, but the bands used by US carriers are different than those used in Japan (and in Europe and other parts of the world for that matter). Whether or not the phones will be able to switch between bands without some sort of hardware unlock remains to be seen.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

[via: Reuters]

Oh my. Still need convincing that the iPhone/iPod touch is the greatest gaming platform ever made? Then check this video of a couple Japanese researchers playing a game they claim to have put together "in about an hour": multiscreen, touch-based Pong.

On first glance, it looks like the game is even checking orientation of the iPods, but if you watch it a little further, when things go faster, you can see that it's actually just pushing the ball from screen to screen as it leaves. Still, if nothing else, a quick demo like this shows that multiple Touches (via a certain website, or on the same WiFi network, maybe, or -- hopefully -- just in close proximity to one another through Bluetooth or another protocol) can easily be made to connect multiplayer gamers.

As a demo, very nice (and it seems fun as a game as well). Can't wait to see a full-featured game that takes advantage of all of the iPhone's connectivity options.

[Via Waxy]