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Add a gigantic spoiler and a 12" subwoofer to wake up the neighbors - in Russia, and this could be the greatest (excuse) riced out - um, humidifier - ever.
A lot of the Japanese "dumbphones" seem to have a lot of the features we would expect on a smartphone, just with a smaller screen. Still, good for Apple in breaking into a foreign market often hostile to foreign products.
@nystreetfilms: When you open a reply text box, you'll notice a picture and youtube logo, click the youtube logo and paste the site URL in the text box, and the Giz comment system does the rest. Pay no mind to the embed link on the youtube page.
I think the funniest part is that it has an obviously ostentatious shade of blue eyeliner.
Wow, never thought it would get this much market share.
I always thought the iPhone would get some market share because the japanese market is very open to new shiny things (new cameras, Nintendo DSi and DSi LL, etc) plus they do like Apple products.
I probably wouldn't exchange "weird mobile" features such as video calls, 8.0mpx cameras, 1seg tuners, nfid remote paying, Suica and several others for an iPhone, but I guess lots of people would.
@Kerfudle wants to be ❤'ed:
Well as a programmer I'd rather use good ol' != but not everyone gets that one. Oddly enough I never bothered figuring out how to actually type it as a single character. Just typing =/= is easy and quick enough.
@Bokusatsu_Tenshi: it's only a matter of time before those features come to Japan's iPhone - they are infrastructural features that are agreed to by various parties like merchant banks, public transport, electronic media as well as hardware vendors. Kinda like London Transport's Oyster Card system or the Europe-wide Chip-and-PIN credit card system, they are not implemented by any one party, but require a lot of behind the scenes negotiations and agreement involving several other parties.
@airmanchairman: Hopefully, those will come to iPhones all over the world. :D
But you know, the iPhone as it is now can't have all those features simply because they require extra hardware and other stuff the iPhone 3GS simply doesn't have.
So, if I was living today in Japan, I still stick to my, of course, personal opinnion of not replacing a japanese cellphone filled with very interesting features for an iPhone, which is really good, but can't beat all those.
Of course, for all the japanese people who don't care for all those functionalities, the iPhone is a great choice.
Also you can hardly call them weird. Japanese cell phones are some of the most advanced on the planet. Most normal ones boast features that smartphones over here wish they had and a lot have had features for years that are only just making their way into phones here. Foreign cellphones don't do well in Japan because to them what we consider a smartphone is almost a dumbphone over there.
Hell they can pay for stuff just by waving their phones around now that most of them have NFID. Not to mention they were the first with 3G.
@Odin: Give us some examples of their great features and specifications. Because I have seen a TON or foriegn stuff not available here. and they have been mediocre, on shitty screens. So, now I am curious...
Western cellphone technology is still playing catch up to Japanese phones. Due to the recession though growth and advancement has slowed over there hence why something like the iPhone has caught up enough to achieve market penetration. It still lacks a lot of features (especially in terms of payment facilities) that a lot of cheaper and older phones will have over there.
@Odin: Supposedly RFID read/write is coming to the next iPhone, I certainly hope so.
While we may be behind in cell infrastructure technology (as in we don't have vending machines with RFID yet), we are far ahead when it comes to integrating these technologies in a way that people actually use them regularly.
Western phones have interfaces that actually let you find and figure out functionality, rather than just boast you have it but only use the TV function.
@macpatrik: Yep. This is once again a matter of us being behind on infrastructure. I bet the interface to turn on 4G will be a lot easier to use in Western phones (I kid!).
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hey - side note, can you tell me how you embeded video... my google skillz turned up nothing.
Thanks -
Rs
12/18/09
I think the funniest part is that it has an obviously ostentatious shade of blue eyeliner.
12/18/09
and yes... the blue eyeliner is retarded scary.
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I always thought the iPhone would get some market share because the japanese market is very open to new shiny things (new cameras, Nintendo DSi and DSi LL, etc) plus they do like Apple products.
I probably wouldn't exchange "weird mobile" features such as video calls, 8.0mpx cameras, 1seg tuners, nfid remote paying, Suica and several others for an iPhone, but I guess lots of people would.
12/18/09
Agreed, advanced =/= weird.
12/18/09
12/18/09
Well as a programmer I'd rather use good ol' != but not everyone gets that one. Oddly enough I never bothered figuring out how to actually type it as a single character. Just typing =/= is easy and quick enough.
12/18/09
EDIT: never mind apparently Gizmodo will not let you use a greater than symbol, how odd.
12/18/09
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12/18/09
But you know, the iPhone as it is now can't have all those features simply because they require extra hardware and other stuff the iPhone 3GS simply doesn't have.
So, if I was living today in Japan, I still stick to my, of course, personal opinnion of not replacing a japanese cellphone filled with very interesting features for an iPhone, which is really good, but can't beat all those.
Of course, for all the japanese people who don't care for all those functionalities, the iPhone is a great choice.
12/18/09
Also you can hardly call them weird. Japanese cell phones are some of the most advanced on the planet. Most normal ones boast features that smartphones over here wish they had and a lot have had features for years that are only just making their way into phones here. Foreign cellphones don't do well in Japan because to them what we consider a smartphone is almost a dumbphone over there.
Hell they can pay for stuff just by waving their phones around now that most of them have NFID. Not to mention they were the first with 3G.
12/18/09
12/18/09
You'll see they are far ahead of us in the West and have been for a long, long, long time.
12/18/09
12/18/09
[www.nytimes.com]
Western cellphone technology is still playing catch up to Japanese phones. Due to the recession though growth and advancement has slowed over there hence why something like the iPhone has caught up enough to achieve market penetration. It still lacks a lot of features (especially in terms of payment facilities) that a lot of cheaper and older phones will have over there.
12/18/09
It's meant to be RFID - Radio-Frequency Identification but I goofed it without noticing.
[en.wikipedia.org]
12/18/09
While we may be behind in cell infrastructure technology (as in we don't have vending machines with RFID yet), we are far ahead when it comes to integrating these technologies in a way that people actually use them regularly.
Western phones have interfaces that actually let you find and figure out functionality, rather than just boast you have it but only use the TV function.
12/18/09
12/18/09
12/18/09
12/16/09