iPhone 3G!
Jul 23rd 2008MattJapan & Takefu
So last week I got a new cellphone (hoorah!) — an iPhone 3G! When I went to Tokyo last November for Kaori’s wedding, I bought an iPod Touch in the Ginza Apple Store, and I fell so in love with it. Prior to owning that I never expected I’d want and iPhone, as I’m not a big cell phone guy (although living in Japan — the land of magical cell phones — has changed that slightly). However, the iPod Touch was so darn awesome, and my only regret was that it didn’t have a speaker or a microphone. The iPhone is basically that. I was getting tired of carrying my iPod *and* my cellphone wherever I went, too, so I knew I had to get one as soon as it came to Japan.
The iPhone came out here on the 11th, and I was pretty set to pick on up after work on the 12th. I knew there were enormous lines in Tokyo, but I figured in Takefu the story might be a bit different… So Hitomi and I went to a Softbank Store and Yamada Denki after work on Saturday, but we were told they were all sold out. Bums to that, right? Not exactly… My friend Gabe had mentioned to me how each store actually has a secret number of phones — say 30 — that they can sell each day. Once they sell that number, they have to say they’re sold out. So the next day around 1pm, Hitomi and I went back to the Softbank store and were told by the salesman, “たぶん一年間待ったら良い” — the wait list was at least 1 year long. Pffah! I can smell bullshit when I hear it and that was Grade A Quality Produce he was trying to serve us.
But just for caution’s sake we went to Yamada Denki again with the intent to reserve one for whenever they should come into stock. When we asked about them, we were prompty seated and told they had them in stock. “Whhhaaaaaaa?” That’s right! So, we sat down and went through all the papers, the salesguy asking me in triplicate all kinds of “are you aware…?” questions meant to discourage less serious buyers from making such an expensive investment — apparantly countless businessmen signed up for the iPhone only to have their wives tell them there was no way in hell they could get one… The iPhone is such an expensive piece of hardware that the installment payment plan can’t be retracted. Unfortunately for me, being a foreigner, I couldn’t sign up for Apple’s “cheaper” installment plan, and I had to fork out the whole cost of the phone up front. On the other hand, that means my monthly fee is the same as my previous one, so that’s fine by me. After all, I wanted the iPhone because it’s a computer I can carry in my pocket, not because it’s a cell phone that elicits erections in hipsters and metrosexuals throughout the US.
OVerall I’m very happy with my phone, but it does have shortcomings compared to Japanese cell phones — no TV, no instant payment system, no MMS, no video calls. Not that I used most of those anyway. The lack of MMS is slightly unfortunate for me, and a total loss for any Japanese iPhone users, as MMS is the primary means of communication here. Nobody uses the phone to chat or to send SMS like they do in the US. Everyone here wants to send photo mails and colorful animated smiley faces — which is why my older handset had over 9 pages of animated emoticons to pick from. It was fun for me, but by no means necessary; and certainly not worth more than the ability to do just about anything that a computer can do with my phone. The only other complaint I have is the crappy notification system for emails. If I get an SMS it beeps and buzzes like a regular phone. But, as we don’t use SMS in Japan, I only get a visual notification if I get an email to my phone, rather than a buzz or a beep. That’s not going to kill the phone for me, but it’s too bad. Although, if Apple wants to survive in Japan, I imagine they will be updating and fixing that *very* soon. After all, no Japanese is going to want to use the phone for long without those feature.
The iPhone has only been out here for slightly over a week, and that’s about as long as I’ve had mine… but I’m sure those complaints by Japanese users will be addressed soon. Anyway I’m waiting mostly for the ability to jailbreak my phone and install any application I want on it, like I did with my iPod Touch. For the time, I love the phone though.