“Two of Asia’s most sought-after cellphone markets may carry the iPhone at the same time, according to a report by Telecoms Korea (subscription required),” AppleInsider reports.
“Both Japan’s predominant carrier, NTT DoCoMo, and Korea Telecom Freetel (KTF) are allegedly in talks that would release the iPhone at the same time in their respective countries. The device would necessarily be the 3G model, as both nations use WCDMA for their calling networks — a feature unsupported by the 2G phone,” AppleInsider reports.
“While an existing announcement of the handset for India and Singapore fulfills Apple’s predictions of an Asian iPhone launch in 2008, the Japanese and Korean launches are seen as crucial for bolstering Apple’s worldwide marketshare,” AppleInsider reports.
Full article here.
Phillip Elmer-Dewitt reports for Fortune, “NTT DoCoMo, with more than 50 million subscribers, is Japan’s predominant mobile phone carrier… KTF, in which NTT owns a minority stake, adopted DoCoMo’s 3G technology in 2004. It has 12 million subscribers in South Korea and operations in several other Asian countries, including India, Indonesia and China.”
“If Apple can conclude the deal before June 9, that would leave China as the last big Asian market without an authorized iPhone carrier,” Elmer-Dewitt reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Brawndo Drinker” for the heads up.]
No, no, no, no ………… SoftBank PLEASE ! My chances of being allowed to get an iPhone are slim enough. I am already with SoftBank and couldn’t change to another carrier. Please, SoftBank !
First post… WOOHOO!
Maybe not… 🙁
Sorry Yves.
If Apple were to get only 5 percent of a billion potential subscribers throughout the world, they would have sold 50 million iphones.
Check my math, but that is incredible
So, the true iPhone killer’s launch is imminent.
It’s the next generation of the iPhone. It seems unusual that the online Apple Store would list the iPhone as currently unavailable for this long unless they have stopped making the first generation to clear the channel.
Korea is Samsung and LG territory. Gonna be some heavy competition there. They’ve probably got iPhone knockoffs that do mobile TV by now. And I’m sure they have universal landscape keyboards, too.
“joint launch” smokin!!
@R2 iPhone is the only phone with OSX, the only one. I’ve used Samsung and LG and the software sucks.
China thinks that they will sell their clones and they will not need the original iPhone.
Funny, all iphones are made in china and it is the almost the only country with out it.
Scott in Japan:
Allowed to get an iPhone? You’re not one of those guys in Japan whose wife controls his finances, are you?
I use Softbank and would not want to change to DoCoMo, but with number portability it’s possible. You’ll get your iPhone if you really want it. Chill, man.
How come any joint launch that I have attended never has any joints? Wow man….its like…a downer eh? People stare at me like I’m special or something.
The iPhone’s not going to be all that successful in either countries. They’ve got better devices there. The iPhone is not that SMS friendly which IMO is one of the things that will prevent it from gaining acceptance in Asia.
Yes! Can’t wait ~ iPods have taken Korea by storm. Apple has made great headway in this market. I have worked in Korea for the past eight years. There is room for the iPhone here. Koreans with whom I have spoken are impressed by Apple. We’ll be buying two iPhones on the day of the launch, one for me and my wife! Woo-hoo!!!
The shame of an entire region is about to be exposed.
The Koreans are so freeking afraid of the iPhone, that they cannot even mention its name! Newspaper articles there go on and on and on about this or that new Korean “smartphone” without ever saying word-one about the looming destruction of their well laid plans.
This is ruining their plans for ultimate domination of the Mobile space.
They are going to be very very sad in Korea…
There are plenty of iPhones in China, just not on an official carrier.
I would not be surprised if Apple don’t actually sign a deal for China at this point. As it weakens China Mobile in negotiations with Apple over a distribution deal. This is particularly relevant if China Mobile are trying to play hardball.
By having official carrier next door to China, grey/black market demand could be satisfied by neighboring countries. Apple still gets the sale, China Mobile missis out on a distro deal, and the opportunity to pick up switchers with the lure of an iPhone.
Watch this space
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@Scott in Japan
Hopefully both DoCoMo AND Softbank will get the iPhone. Although Softbank and AU (whose network seems out of the question for the iPhone) have been getting many more new subscribers than NTT DoCoMo, NTT still has the most advanced and well deployed network amongst the three, and is the largest company, no matter how difficult it seems for it to get its act together, beyond changing the color of the logo and that abysmal “DoCoMo 2.0” campaign. I myself, started out with DoCoMo (before J-Phone was bought by Vodafone, and before Softbank bought the business from Vodafone), and switched to Softbank only to switch back to DoCoMo after I found the latter’s service to be more consistent.
@Jim of D
This seems to be something that’s repeated and taken for granted as if it were fact. That the cell phones (in Japan) are more advanced than the iPhone. I would argue that this simply is NOT necessarily true. Unfortunately, the term “better” has come to be paired with “more features,” meaning that people say that the phones are better simply because they have a higher number of features. This idea is, of course, bullocks. The more significant issues are how easy are those features to access and use, and how many people actually use any of those features.
Perhaps one of the most important matters in the iPhone succeeding in Japan is how much work has Apple put in Japanese text input, as the Japanese input method for the current iPhone and iPod touch is insufficient, to say the least.
Asian Phones have been superior in that they have WAY better resolution (necessary for complex character based languages). This difference is largely negated by the iPhone.
Saying that, they like to change their phones FAR more often than in the US.
Docomo is the best choice for carriers inside of Japan. People new to the iPhone will receive the best user experience with Docomo. Developing a solid reputation is very important in Japan. Marketing alone will not be the only reason for success in Japan. Word of mouth is another very unpublicized, important reason for a products overall success here.
As a sides note, many of my Japanese and ex-pat friends are canceling their contracts with Softbank because of the poor customer service and sketchy network connectivity.
@Lee in Japan. Yes, sad but true. Such is life living in the culture!
She is almost anti-tech. If it weren’t for her “window” shopping for jewelry, LV and travel, she’d probably rarely use a computer. We both are with SoftBank and our combined bill is only 5000 yen and she complains it is too high. If the iPhone Japan plan is anything like the $60 entry fee in the US, it’ll be a no go. If we (she) has to change her phone to a new carrier, it’ll be a no go. Buying the phone will be no problem, I’ve saved enough to buy 2 phones. It’s the rates that’ll really kill me. Time will tell.
(another hint of her tech savvy(?)… she will NOT stop using IE !!!)
@Jasenpheffer
<<the Japanese input method for the current iPhone and iPod touch is insufficient, to say the least.>> I can’t say I’ve done an extensive survey, but I’ve not heard it to be insufficient. I’ve talked to one (Japanese) adult and one (Japanese) Jr. High student. They both echoed that typing Japanese is not that difficult. In fact, the adult (a teacher who is heavily into Macs) said he feels typing in (on?) the iPod Touch is no different than using his ketai.
I wonder if most of the naysayers are people who don’t like change and easily give up when something is too difficult ?!!??
Maybe the handwriting recognition found in iPhone 2.0 will be the cure for any Asian character input issues.
http://gizmodo.com/387188/iphone-20-firmware-will-have-handwriting-recognition-go-to-japan-and-china
iPhone/iPod Touch Japanese input issues. This afternoon I asked my Japanese Jr. High student about using her Touch. I asked which is easier. Are the same? She did say her ketai was easier, but the Touch WAS NOT difficult to use. As I stated before: Who are these naysayers ? Have they used an iPod Touch ? I have played with 2 or 3 Touch here in Japan. I think all of them had somekind of heavy duty saran wrap on them. It does make input kind of annoying. And honestly, I’ve not tried any Japanese text input… next time in a electronics store I’ll have to give it a try.
@Scott in Japan
This is my personal opinion, so it’s not worth much, but in response to your comment, I would say that typingin Japanese on the iPhone/iPod touch is great. Notice that I mentioned that the input method for Japaneseis insufficient, not that the input method in general is insufficient.
What I would call insufficient is everything that happens after text is initially input. For example, when typing in English, the software will automatically correct my atrocious mistakes due to my own typing inaccuracy. And this all happens “on the fly,” as is well known. But the same just doesn’t happen for Japanese in the current software configuration.
Also, the software doesn’t allow for the changing of long strings of hiragana into the mix of kanji, hiragana, and katakana that would occur in everyday written Japanese. This means that you’re constantly taking your thumbs/fingers (or whatever other appendage people use) away from the keyboard area in order to select the kanji that you’re after, as the area in which the character conversion choices are given is above the actual keyboard area.
Additionally, if you DO make a mistake in the middle of the input string and don’t notice until you’re ready to make the conversion, you’ll have to erase every character that you’ve input so far just to change the one character that you input incorrectly, before converting the character string.
All of this is cumbersome, (and although I hate to say it, rather poorly thought out) and I think you’ll find it the same when you have a chance to mess around with the iPod touch.
Also, you’ll notice that–perhaps because of hardware issues–the keyboard will actually hang when typing in Japanese.
In summary, based on my personal experience, typing in English (and I presume most other languages based on Roman letters) is absolutely heavenly. Typing in Japanese, on the iPhone/iPod touch has simply not reached that level. Most of it seems to be a software issue, and I would argue that Apple needs to implement more robust software for the “smart” changing of character strings, and do so in a manner that does not require the user to constantly remove her/his fingers from the main typing area.
As you said, I suggest you give yourself some time with the iPod touch–preferably at least a few days–to see what you think of the Japanese text input, and how it could be made better. Hopefully it will have grown with leaps and bounds in the next version of the software.