MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Jul 16, 08 - 11:09 am Comment from: Ampar

"Get an iPhone case that offers a hole for hanging trinkets."

Or just use your favorite exposable appendage.

Ah yes, trinkets.
You place it in the phone, and as soon as you get a call, you pull the phone out only to find that the trinket has hooked onto your "Johnson&Johnson;".

But maybe the asian "Johnson and Johnson" isn't as big as the western world hence may not experience the same problem.

I wonder if they will ever be able to exchange phone numbers some other way, or if it will just prove too much for them and the iPhone will fail?

Jul 16, 08 - 11:29 am Comment from: Ampar

Preemptive Raving Mad Lunatic Mac Head Comment:

1) iPhone is a toy and I'm yawning.

2) I have a flip phone that's pre-paid. Apple needs this to survive.

3) My MacBook Pro has Wi-Fi which makes it better than an iPhone.

4) AT&T is controlled by the NSA.

5) Obama did or will do something I don't like and it doesn't matter that it's irrelevant to this thread.

Jul 16, 08 - 11:29 am Comment from: ElderNorm

I find it incredible how dumb the world (or maybe its just writers) can be.

THIRD PARTY MFG. .......... If a case mfg cannot figure out how to add a little circle of plastic to add trinkets to, or even glue on to an existing product, .......well.

Of course the stupid comment about longer battery life just goes without comment. Especially since its asian mfg that make the plug in external battery booster.

So we will see who will be smarter and more innovative. Making a iPhone plugin to the bottom of the unit that can read information and "beam" it to existing japanese phones. Will it be an asian company or a US company that uses just a bit of imagination and creativity.

My guess is on the USA. After all. Who invented the iPhone???

en

Just a note to the quasi-racist opinions being expressed here ...

While the word "trinket" was used in the article, that's just a bad translation and people's use of it here seems intended to demean the entire practice.

In Japan, as well as in many Asian cultures having a solid loop on a pocket device, both for securing said device to a person and for hanging fobs and tassles off of is NON-OPTIONAL.

This just shows how little Apple understands the Japanese market and why they have had such major problems making inroads in Japan.

The whole tassle/fob/trinket thing might be silly to people in the USA, but it isn't to most asians and it's wrong to make fun of it or belittle it as some are (seemingly) doing here.

It's almost the same as making a car without a car radio to make a cell phone for Japanese people that doesn't have a way to attach things to it. It's a central part of the culture and so expected that it must have been a shock for them to see a device without one.

"For example, young people in Japan take for granted the ability to share phone numbers, e-mail addresses and other contact information by beaming it from one phone to another over infrared connections."

Simple solution: Hand them your card. Call them "personal cards" or "call me" cards rather than "business cards".

I'm sorry... but the lack of a few fundamentals of the Japanese will hamper the iPhone's adoption rate there.

In typical fashion, I wouldn't doubt it if the Japanese take the iPhone improve on it and introduce it to the Japanese market. It's only a matter of time.

Jul 16, 08 - 11:41 am Comment from: Bluefin

Preemptive response to Raving Mad's response to AMPAR

Oh for crying out loud... we GET it ALREADY. Enough.
We understand you don't want an iPhone.

Don't get it. Prepay all you want. This is clearly not marketed at you.

I hang at the BMWDailyNews.com site

I see you whining over there about the price of the 750i too.

You're not going to get BMW USA to market the BMW to the Yugo crowd, any sooner than you are going to get Apple to market the iPhone to the prepaid crowd.

@ApplePi

Um, o.k. Sony has done a great job of this with their phones. Right?

I think the Japanese will trade a trinket hole for a multi-touchscreen any day. Use your push email to hook a babe on MobileEverybody(Me).
Start your own fad.

I sympathize with the comment about battery life. The infrared interface is obsolete and market-specific features can be added in software, but the iPhone 3G should have come with a bigger battery (not a smaller one, which is what it has). It's better than other 3G phones, but their battery life sucks and they have exchangeable batteries. You shouldn't have to glom an external battery onto this thing to last through a typical day.

On the other hand, I have noticed that the situations that really drain battery life kill it so fast that it's a hard problem to solve. For example, games can really drain the thing dry quickly, as can GPS use. I just bought a car charger to address the GPS issue --- I never needed one for my old iPhone.

Two words.... Super Glue

That will hold those trinkets

Jul 16, 08 - 12:42 pm Comment from: Sir Gill Bates

Ampar: Thank you.

ElderNorm:

"My guess is on the USA. After all. Who invented the iPhone???"

Heck, who invented the PHONE!

Jeremy: The Japanese can take the same thing everyone else gets or go without. I don't think it's racist to say that they aren't any better than the rest of the world.

Jul 16, 08 - 12:43 pm Comment from: MrScrith

I wouldn't be surprised if someone sets up an app that uses bluetooth to transfer contact stuff.

just crazy glue the damn trinket to the corner.

Jul 16, 08 - 12:48 pm Comment from: Roberto

@ Ampar,

You forgot Windoze Raving etc. comments, "You loser fanbois who suk Job's ******* and drool whenever your master intros some new craptastic product are so lame, MAC suxxors and Vista is teh Bomb!"

Jul 16, 08 - 12:52 pm Comment from: Brau

The Japanese need a developer to make a Trinket App that allows teens to display their trinkets on the touchscreen and trade them via WiFi.

While they're at it .. the Catholics could use a Confessional App with some Rosary Beads to fondle.

What is racist about trinkets? Childish yes, racist no. Tattoos and piercings are childish as well, no matter how many cultures condone them.

Saying Japanese phones without belt clips would not sell in America is not racist either. Cell phone belt clips are just as stupid as trinket rings. Cell phones on belt clips are modern six shooter belt holsters. Kids playing cowboys.

Grow up.

Jul 16, 08 - 01:21 pm Comment from: Ampar

To Sir Gill Bates: No Sir! Thank you!
To Roberto: That was poetry! <sniff>
To Brau: "and trade them via WiFi." A little too close to squirting?

Jul 16, 08 - 01:22 pm Comment from: Micro Me

"Or just use your favorite exposable appendage."

Or as Zune Tang would say,"Suck on that dork, MAC."

No, wait......

You can't glue the trinkets on the iPhone and they can't be software based because they need to dangle. They hang on an inch or two of string where they swing and swoosh and swoop as you fiddle on your phone. Oh, they also blink furiously in multiple colors when a call comes in. Sometimes the string is tough and long enough as in a necklace so that you can 'wear' your phone and prevent you from losing it and needing to remember where you put the thing. More trinkets can then be bought individually and attached individually depending on your style and mood. IT'S EFFING AWWWESOMEEE!

Jul 16, 08 - 01:46 pm Comment from: Ampar

I do want to express myself, okay? But I don't need 37 pieces of flair to do it.

I could do without the racist and cultural elitist comments. You guys are not nearly as clever or funny as you think you are.

Hopefully the Japanese will find the iPhone inspiring enough to make a phone that can actually compete with the iPhone's features. Till then they will just have to complain about their missing pet features, like everyone else does.

Every culture has specific wants/needs for its social scene. If beaming your contact info between phones is the social norm, anyone who hands a paper business card out in a bar is going to look like a fool.

If hanging stuff from your phone is cool, then people who want the iPhone will buy a case with a loop on it to hang their stuff. I'm sure case makers will have cool cases to compliment the typical stuff people hang from their phones. Personally, that would annoy me to no end, but I don't live in Japan.

Europe didn't adopt the iPhone quickly either because it wasn't 3G, which is what Europeans expect for a phone. However, don't expect Apple to add infrared just for the Japanese market; it's a dying technology and such beaming may be accomplished by a Wi-Fi app in the near future anyway. That would allow you to send more than just contact info, anyway.

Jul 16, 08 - 02:48 pm Comment from: Roberto

...Wait'll I get going!

To Ampar:
We're listening.....

MDN titles: "Japan’s quirky, cloistered mobile world..."
My question: have you been there? Or are you talking about americas yet underdevelopped phone system?
In fact Japan has the MOST unquirky phone system of the planet! There, you almost don't need any extra credit card and almost no driver's licence because so much is already well fixed just with your cellular phone...

Jul 16, 08 - 03:40 pm Comment from: Sir Gill Bates

Come to think of it, the fuzzy dice hanging on the rearview mirror of my '57 Chevy might look pretty nifty swinging from an iPhone.

Jul 16, 08 - 03:58 pm Comment from: AAPLguy

@Ampar
re:flair

LOL. Classic.

I'm not defending MDN, but they did say "mobile world" and not "phone system"

I'm living in Japan now, and 'closed' and 'cloistered' is the perfect word to describe Japan's cell phone market. Sure, from brand to brand there are slight differences in appearance, user interface, etc., but every phone I've seen here is pretty much exactly the same: pretty on the outside, a million features I will never need in a million years, and the most awful, butt-ugly, difficult-to-use mess of a user interface I have ever seen on any electric appliance, including my Japanese microwave that's inexplicably lacking a digital keypad (@.@).

There are three different ways to send e-mail, apparently according to length and price. Nothing's where it should be in the settings. The little button that switches the ring on and off is on the outside of the phone so it gets switched accidentally all the time.

The little 'trinkets'? 'Trinkets' is too good a word for them. I tried them once, if only as souvenirs. But it's a big pain when your phone is ringing and you're yanking on it, trying to pull it out of your bag, only to find the little trinkets have gotten wrapped around everything. And by the time you manage to untangle the little nightmares, the caller is of course long-gone.

It also sucks when your bag gets a little damp in the rain and the stupid trinkets bleed all over your paperwork. Or when they snag on your clothes and rip holes in them.

I love Japan, but things like their #&$% cell phones make me look forward to going home.

Hmm... so can the Japanese use their cell phones to open their garage door or change the channels on their TVs? You would think that they could beam each others phones via wifi, or bluetooth via a 3rd party developed program.

I have to agree that most phones here in the U.S. don't offer all of the features that they have been playing with in Japan for years. In those cases the iPhone might be a step backwards in technology. I don't know. But, the good news is that there might be something programmable that can make that happen, and maybe we can actually start seeing some of this technology come to America.

The "trinkets" are only a "must" for young girls in Tokyo, not the general market. This is a shrinking market segment in a country whose population is shrinking at an amazing rate. It is disappointing after all these years that so many pundits in Western media misunderstand the Japanese market.

Apple does a great understanding of the market - it dominates the MP3 player market in the country that created the Walkman! Macs sell very, very well. Apple Stores, and Apple departments at all the major electronics stores are all extremely crowded every day, all day. This is not what the situation was just four years ago when it was tough to find apple products without going to specialty retailers. The iPhone will do very well here, even if it does not have a phone strap hole.

@Rudge
Japanese cell phones can change channels on TV's. And you are correct that they could beam the information via different connection method. However all the other Japanese do beam their data via irda connections built into the phone. This is a significant weakness in Japan for the iPhone. Irda ports cost less than a dollar. Apple should consider opening this up, or someone creative should figure out how to connect to the general phone market another way. Perhaps email?

@bizlaw
Your generalization is completely unrealistic. In the business world in Japan, EVERYONE hands out business cards. The number beaming is done mostly between private individuals and most of them are high school kids.

Jul 16, 08 - 06:52 pm Comment from: Occasional Poster

Trinkets: a bad description. Think of it as Key Chain. Most US grownups use key chain "trinkets" to help, identify quickly or locate their keys. In the same way, Japanese use a ringed key chain fob of sorts to find, identify or grasp at their cell phones quickly.

Men do not "wear" their cell phones in pouches attached to their belts like US men do. The only people that I see over here wearing their phones on belt holders are foreigners to Japan (and I am one.)

Whose phone is whose is recognized the same as Keys are in the US - by the key fob - or" trinket" as described by the interpreter.

Actually Japan IS actually VERY quirky. Give me a topic, and I'm sure I can give an example of quirkiness. When talking to friends who have never been here I often use the word 'contrasts' in reference to Japan. In this case (these cases?) quirky can definitely be interchanged.

As for the crap found hanging off of Japanese cell phones.... again, quirky. Contrasts. Some people have maybe one or two simple 'Keitai strapS' on their phone. But others are over the top with 10, 15 or more things hanging off of their phones. This crosses all ages and sexes. Quirky, just as the article suggest.
I could go on and on, but won't.

Culture.

The Japanese in the 1800's had a yen for all things British (go figure).
Very soon they were all wearing top hats like little british guys.

The iPhone is what it is, and many Japanese will buy it because it DOESNT have a hole to dangle your toys from.

We arent really talking about culture here, we are talking about teenage trends and pop culture, a different kettle of fish/sushi.

I am sure that the underlying traditional cultural elements of Japan will not be affected by the iPhone at all.

Blah blah blah. Some things never understood by foreigners. Cultural differences. Get over it.

@ElderNorm
That's great to know you're a proud American lol
You guys made the iPhone.. that's great!
But who made Windows? and their trash Zune? lmao

Some phones in Japan is on the 3.5G network. Soon (probably the next series of Docomo phones) will have 3.9G network also known as the Super 3G. They're getting ready to shift to the 4G network by 2011~.

I think that's when iPhone is gonna really shine.
But then again, iPhone will shine as it gets older and older...

Jul 17, 08 - 06:42 am Comment from: Scott in Japan

Some phones in Japan is on the 3.5G network.
>>Some phoneS in Japan ARE.....<<
Soon (probably the next series of Docomo phones) will have 3.9G
>>Soon Docomo phones (probably the next series) will have.....<<
network also known as the Super 3G. They're getting ready to shift to the 4G network by 2011~.

I think that's when >>the<<iPhone is gonna really shine.
But then again, iPhone will shine as it gets older and older...

Jul 17, 08 - 10:05 am Comment from: Sir Gill Bates

"But then again, iPhone will shine as it gets older and older..."

In my case, as I get older, the only thing shining is the top of my head.