Pricey, slow, feature-free phone fails to catch on in Japan

It failed to take off in India too. just goes to show how far behind USA is in mobile phones.

Everybody here in gadget-crazy Japan likes the touchscreen, but say that’s all the iPhone has going for it. Nobody is interested in it because Japanese phones are far more advanced, and have had much better features for years. For many other countries, however, it’s probably an improvement on what they currently have.

Oh, one other important thing. In Japan we use our phones ALL the time, and we operate our phones with one hand. Nobody likes phones where we need to use both, which actually makes the touchscreen a disadvantage.

I always hear about how advanced Japanese technology is, but I don’t really understand. I mean, most companies sell globally so surely advanced Japanese tech is something we all have access to? Are we talking about Sony products etc or are there lots of products available exclusively in Japan.

Btw: I think Asia is a hard market to crack for an American consumer electronics company though. Look at the sales of the xbox 360 compared to the PS3 in Japan.

Dan, Dan Dan! what a frustrated person you become…it’s really sad:(

Didn’t you read the report, shaun ? Can you shop, catch trains, Sat navigate, view HD Digital TV, shoot video and High Res stills, listen to music, surf the net at 100 Mbps, and make calls … just for starters, all on your phone, and all with one hand ?

Here you go.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/95281-ce-spending-looks-dismal-but-macs-set-to-hit-new-all-time-high

I *did* read the report, and to be honest, it’s a mixed bag of genuine shortcomings (the iPhone’s camera IS rubbish), software solutions (why do you need a chip embedded? there have been successful trials of micropayments via mobile phone in the UK for years) and just pure WTF… “emoji”…? the Japs don’t like it because it’s not stuffed with crappy smileys…? “Japanese users don’t know what to do with an iPhone”… errrrrrrm, well then I think they have a slightly bigger problem there, sport…

i live in tokyo and have an iphone. in my opinion the reasons why it’s not catching on here would be, in no particular order: it’s difficult and slow to enter text in japanese; the screen is too big and obvious (they like their privacy while using phones on the crowded trains/streets); it’s perceived as a gimmick/not a safe bet yet/cautious adaptors; it’s not made by a japanese company (don’t discount the j-FUBU factor); missing features (ir port to exchange contacts, tv reception, emoticons)…

most people are excited to see and try out my iphone but i get the impression they don’t feel it’s right for them. perhaps it’s too much of a departure from the norm. i think japanese are intensely keen to fit in and not stand out too much.

Crazy Japs. It’s a cellphone for my sakes!

- Barry

But yeah, that’s why I finally decided to get rid of my iPhone. I couldn’t insert emoticons into my text messages. How very annoying. And I was unable to use it to pay for my daily Sausage McMuffin with Egg, although I’m sure I could have traded it for my breakfast.

- Barry

Pricey, slow, and feature free ! They should be selling like hotcakes

The idea that any other place in the world has better cell phones is utter bullshit.

You can buy any GSM phone from anywhere in the world and put it on ATT or T-Mobile here in the USA.

With all that freedom, what do I do? I run an unlocked iPhone on T-Mobile.

I love your sarcasm, Patrick. Funniest comment yet! Anyone would think you’d actually read the report, too.

So, Marxist, what about the below is unavailable in the US? You can get all the TV crap from Verizon or Sprint, but no one in their right mind wants to pay for TV on their fucking phone.

And why would people who use a train pass need satellite navigation, or vice versa?

“Models currently sold by Japanese cellphone makers typically contain a high-end color display, digital TV-viewing capability, satellite navigation service, music player and digital camera. Many models also include chips that let owners use their phones as debit cards or train passes.”

“And why would people who use a train pass need satellite navigation, or vice versa?”

Well Patrick, it’s quite simple really. They want to make sure the train is taking the correct route.

- Barry

It’s a cultural problem. Japanese like many buttons and many features, even if they don’t work well or are hidden deep in the menu structure. Less isn’t more when it comes to Gadgets in Japan, quite the contrary.

Also, the Kana (thus, Kanji) input is too slow and awkward as my Japanese colleagues tell me. It’s similar to what Japanese phones use, but too error-prone.

Also, Japanese like to get the newest phone every few month (and the carriers play along by making contracts that allow this), so it’s not really a favorable thing to have a phone that will not be replaced for the next 1-2 years. It’s just “old” after a few months and you crave something new.

Also, there is no hook on the iPhone to attach cute puppets too. You might laugh, but it’s important in this country.

As Fake Steve you were an iconoclast but as Real Dan you just part of the herd.

This is mickey mouse.

*GASP*

Cute puppets DO NOT belong on an Apple product!

“Also, Japanese like to get the newest phone every few month (and the carriers play along by making contracts that allow this), so it’s not really a favorable thing to have a phone that will not be replaced for the next 1-2 years. It’s just “old” after a few months and you crave something new.”

~ 50 M phones sold in Japan per year: ~ .39 per person
~120 M phones sold in the US per year: ~.40 per person

Looks like this reason is bogus. And if anything, a smaller percentage of Americans have phones, so their purchase frequency is higher.

feature free ????!!! but … {sputter!!} but … SUPER-MONKEY BALL!!!!

<Japan

You’re right, sam. The real reason is that Japanese customers know a fanboy toy when they see one. The fanboys here got ripped off at first, just like everywhere else, but now after discount upon discount, they can’t give them away.

Apple needs better marketing in Japan. People don’t understand what they can do with the phone (the software aspect) and how easy it is to use compared to their Japanese phones. There are great new softwares coming out these days from Yahoo, Tabelog, and Hot Pepper that are far superior to those on Jse phones, at least for making your way in Tokyo. Whenever my wife and I compete with our phones to find the best routes, places to eat, nearest Starbucks, the iPhone wins hands down. but no she won’t get one because it doesn’t have IR, emoji, or the ic chip for her train pass and instant payments.

The list of features are really important to the Japanese market. The lack of a good camera hurts them here. The lack of Emoji as crazy as it sounds is a big downside here. I have trouble reading emails from some people because they use so many. They couldn’t imagine not using them. People basically use them in place of words.

Another problem is the lack of support for Mobile sites. Using the full website is really slow or impossible due to flash, sometimes the mobile sites won’t come up at all. New apps are starting to appear for Japanese sites and services and I think that will help.

I don’t see a lot of people using the payment chip, but I probably would of been if I had a credit card.

The biggest problem is that typing in Japanese can be really slow. It takes a long time to bring the keyboard up and it lags a lot, much more then typing in English. The kanji conversion is slow and not nearly as well polished as Japanese phones. Mine seems to be getting a little better trained, but I’ve been using it for a month. Often people I show it too are pretty impressed, until I try to type something and the phone starts to crawl.

The lack of alerts for email is a pain in the ass. Why can’t get they push out early for Softbank? Why doesn’t it vibrate or beep when the new mail notice appears? Why can’t I set it to repeat more then once. Hardly anyone uses SMS.

And as others have said, IR is a very important feature here. It’s nearly impossible to send contact information without it. No one knows how to use blue tooth and many phones don’t come with it. Not being able to insert your contact info into mails or SMS means you have to do it all manually. Japanese mobile email addresses tend to be long and complicated (to help avoid spam) so entering them isn’t an easy task.

I love my iPhone here, but it’s got a long list of issues. They aren’t show stoppers (for many people), but take all of them together and it adds up to more then most people here are going to deal with.

Great post, Charles. You’ve nailed all the major deal breakers.

Kanji is very slow and error prone, no IR, no video or decent camera, slow full sites, no IC chip, no email alerts, not to mention no hook for mandatory keitai ’straps’, plus the fact that you need two hands to operate it.

Maybe when all those issues (and more) are fixed, it’ll have some appeal here, but for now, the slow sales speak volumes for a gadget crazy country.

Charles,

Let me see if I understand correctly; the Japanese market has the most advanced smartphones in the world (I know you did not make that argument personally, but it’s the point whose merit is being debated here) and yet:

“No one knows how to use blue tooth and many phones don’t come with it”

In the UK, *EVERYONE* knows how to use bluetooth and *EVERY* phone comes with it.
See, this is why I think that, while there may be one or two genuine technical barriers to iPhone success (sounds like the Kanji conversion is a big problem) most of the issue is simply that the Japanese market is *different*, and not the all encompassing futuristic utopia that people are describing.

If UK product marketing listed a phone’s ability to use smileys and hang soft toys off it as major features, and IR but no bluetooth, it would get laughed at.

Perhaps I misunderstood the report’s line about the Japanese not knowing what to do with an iPhone, since gaijin’s comments seem to suggest it is a marketing issue.

My iPhone has a lot fewer “features” than my previous phone (SonyEricsson K800i) but it’s still a better handset because the features it *does* have actually work, and so I actually use them. I’d rather have a phone with 10 features and use 100% of them, than a phone with 100 features and only use 10% of them. Those 90 features that I don’t use (because they’re unusable in many cases) still take up interface space and add complexity.

This is why the iPhone is a success. As Gruber aptly put it over at Daring Fireball, the iPhone is the first handset where the advertising revolves around showing how it actually works.
Just about every other handset ads either don’t show the screen at all, or if they do there’s a little “screenshot simulated” caption at the bottom, both on-screen and in print.

Dear Dan!

You used to be funny impersonating somebody else, steve that is.
Blogging being yourself is not a hit though your bitterness is shining through. So stick to the old game instead dude – do like the actors do. The are nicer on stage and in the movies than in private – why else building a career being somebody else…

And yet, MadDog, the reason the iPhone is not a success here, along with the other issues Charles explained, revolves around showing how it actually works, or in this case, doesn’t. The Japanese market is indeed *different*. It’s the all encompassing futuristic utopia that people are describing.

hmmm… an “all encompassing futuristic utopia” where phones still use line-of-sight infrared instead of Bluetooth… yeah…

Oh really, MadOstrich ? Who told you that ? Charles’ post nailed the issues the iPhone has which result in it being unsuccessful here, but his generalisation that noone knows how to use bluetooth is obviously just that, and many phones do come with it.

How’s your cut and paste, IR, video, and one handed operation going, by the way ?

sven gali — i operate my iPhone with one hand. in fact, i’ve become rather good at it. especially when i’m using the iPhone safari browser to surf … ahem … certain sites …

Hello? David Duchovny? Is there an extra bunk open in that rehab …?

Well, I’ll say that Apple’s Bluetooth sucks so much battery that I now do without it. It was fine on my old Motorolas. Similarly, I’ve disabled the location services. They were fine in 1.1.4, but now kill battery life. I don’t have the 3G phone since I’m on T-Mobile — no 3G on T-Mobile USA, and no one’s unlocked the 3G iPhone yet. Honestly though, i don’t care about 3G — just WiFi — and for some sort of connection in case of emergency Edge or even GPRS is fine.

I thought iPhone can be operated with a tongue, if need be. Does it care how you touch it? Talk about personalization.

SJ sold (already) bazillions of iPhones. It is working for Apple. Japanese market will have to wait for a jampack or something for an iPhone.

someone can write an app that inserts emoji, just like a third-party is working on cut-copy-paste and getting other apps to support it. charles, i can understand why they’d want it in that culture, it’s a culture whose language was originally based on a pictogram language (kanji).

IR seems entirely unnecessary to me when you have bluetooth, wifi, gps, edge & 3G already. just look at the 3rd party “remote” app that allows you to control iTunes on your mac or your AppleTV from the iPhone via wifi. wanna send contact info? develop an app that does it via bluetooth or wifi.

the ic chip just scare the bejesus outta me, and i don’t know why it’s so popular in that culture — do they think themselves immune from identity theft, the biggest ongoing crimewave there is??? i could give a rat’s ass if it gets you through a convenience store quicker or on a train faster — no thanx.

oh, and by the by, welcome to the real dan lyons blog, everyone. starring mad dog & j. marx in a bitch-slap contest, featuring occasional blog posts from real dan.

Well, Karl (or is it Groucho?)… ahem… who told me that? Let’s see, *you* declared that Japan was, in fact, the aforementioned futuristic utopia (as opposed to my declaration that it wasn’t) and Charles made the generalisation that no-one knows how to use Bluetooth. So there are my sources. Keeping up? Good.

Of course it was a generalisation, if for no other reason than the pedantic fact that Charles (I’m sure) hasn’t canvassed the opinion of everyone in Japan. It was a generalisation in much the same way that my comment about how everyone in the UK *does* know how to use Bluetooth was also a generalisation. But read my second comment again (you know, the one that inspired the hilaaaaaaaarious Ostrich tag); no-where do I make reference to how many people may or may not know how to use Bluetooth, my point was that Japan is being held up as a more technically sophisticated market (and therefore the reason why the iPhone is allegedly not successful) and yet someone from the region who surely is in a better position to know than me, says that a lot of the phones sold there don’t have something as basic as Bluetooth. I would struggle to find a phone on sale in the UK that doesn’t have Bluetooth.
Meanwhile, smiley’s and straps fir furry toys are pointed to as deal breakers.

I say again. WTF?

Swapping handsets every few months is insane. If I was going to be sanctimonious, I’d go so far as to call it irresponsible, resource-squandering, unnecessary consumerism. There’s nothing in any normal person’s life that needs that kind of gadget turnover.

Cut & Paste? I can honestly say the only time I needed that was when I was setting up my mail accounts and wanted to copy the POP server address. Since then I’ve not missed it, or even come across a situation where I needed it.

IR? Hello? 1993 called and wants its technology back…

Video? Yeah, good call. But then I already acknowledged that in my first post. The iPhone is far from perfect and I’m not trying to pretend otherwise.

One-handed operation? uh, that’s just fine, thanks. Are you some kind of mini-me character whose fingers aren’t long enough to stretch the whole 2 inches across the width of the handset? Or maybe you just don’t have opposable thumbs…

Shouldn’t be a surprise — Apple’s kind-of all about the idea of the creative, expressive, individualistic person. Which is the exact opposite of everybody in Japan.

You work for Apple Marketing, don’t you, Cracker Kevin? Nobody else could possibly be so thick. Having said that, kudos on the funniest, most ironic p*sstake in years … naming your latest “innovation” Genius. I bet some of your fanboys still don’t get the joke.

It’s true that the lack of “emoji” and so forth is a big deal to Japanese mobile phone users, and is probably one of the biggest detractors right now.
However, in the app store, there seems to be a fair amount of Japanese apps being written specifically for Japanese users, with more coming every time. Based on these apps, and on the iphone being a great platform for 3rd party applications, I think iphone uptake might eventually accelerate in Japan. Someone will write that killer app. It’ll just take longer than elsewhere because a different set of barriers have to be broken down or compensated for.

It was delightful to see Bill and Steve sharing a stage and reminiscing about their stuff, but I was surprised that Bill (gadgets) and Steve (widgets) didn’t settle the debate about the original inventor of the widget.

One can never have too many widgets. Somebody codes something you never even dreamed of wanting – suddenly everybody

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