Apple iPhone is hated in the land of the rising sun

[jonmorris]

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/0...he-iphone.html

Apple's iPhone has wowed most of the globe — but not Japan, where the handset is selling so poorly it's being offered for free.

What's wrong with the iPhone, from a Japanese perspective? Almost everything: the high monthly data plans that go with it, its paucity of features, the low-quality camera, the unfashionable design and the fact that it's not Japanese.

Is this a surprise? Can Apple turn things around and convince the Japanese people that the iPhone is the best thing since sliced fish?

[SK]

Not really. the Japanese are Tech Savvy and can see through the Glitz and the Gloss to see it for what it really is.

I know the fanboi's will get irate and start ranting but I've said it before and I'll say it again. It's old technology with a fancy UI. that is all it is.

[Vane]

Yeah but that still doesn't really explain the dislike SK. The Nintendo DS was hardly cutting edge when it launched (remember the PSP launched earlier with its near PS2 matching graphics) but the Japanese loved it...mainly because it was Japanese. If Microsoft had launched it, it would have bombed in Japan and the Japanese gaming companies would have on the whole not made many games for it.

I would have expected the Japanese to like the iPhone UI because there's not much not to like about it but appreciate it might not be enough for those who like taking their high res photos and watching broadcast TV and the like.

[clonmult]

And those who like using their phones for payments (like a chip'n'pin on overdrive?).

Or what about those uber location services - not just a case of saying that there's a chippy within 200 meters, but pointing a phone in a given direction, and it'll tell you "whats over there". For which you'll need a compass built into the phone (thats where Nokia are going with the N97?).

But I thought the article was mis-quoting people :

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl.../03/01/1358233

[jonmorris]

My God, I never realised the politics behind whether something from the USA could sell in Japan.

Somehow, I don't think the average Japanese consumer is caring so much about where the product is made - just whether it does what they want. The Japanese seem to have higher expectations, which isn't exactly surprising.

[MilhouseVH]

According to an October 2008 study, almost 50% of Japanese phones support "electronic wallet" (or Osaifu Keitai, literally "mobile wallet") functionality for payments at vending machines and shops, identity card, loyalty cards, credit cards, fare collection on public transit including air travel etc.

If the country has become accustomed to that kind of mobile phone functionality, then I can easily see why they might turn their noses up at the iPhone, in fact practically any current phone from the West. There are a ton of feature packed phones available in Japan that you never see over here - the iPhone hardware is pretty dated in the West (nice UI though, it has to be said) but it's positively antediluvian in downtown Tokyo!

[Vane]

Good find clonmult! A dodgy Wired article.

But I do think in Japan (with no experience of the country or people really but so what! ) the people tend to believe that their domestic companies will deliver what they want.

Whereas in Britain, it's more true to say that we don't care where things are made. Surely no economy is more open than the British, which we may now be beginning to think is not such a good thing.