[jaja]

ok - so i'm visiting japan, and help a college buy his iphone. this post may sound a bit negative- but its really a msg to the carrier - get ur stuff together!! ur going to have people loose faith in the iphone.

1. go to a local softbank (thats the carrier here...) and no line - was able to buy one on that day. (good news)

2. omg data plan is like $60/month... wtf?

3. phone itself is like $800 and you have to pay it over 24 months.... so it works out to about $35 month... (if ur doing the math its about $95/month already)

4. but what's really confusing is that they are offering a discount of around $15/month.... (have no idea of what this is... back down to around $80)

5. voice plan = $10 (i think its called a 'white plan' or something - back up to $90) - and no minutes...40 cents a minute to non carrier calls and free mobile to mobile (this is weird too... for some reason its free from 1 in the morning to 9 in the evening... and 40 cents a min from 9pm to 1 am.... so its like a reverse 'free nights'.... free days?)

6. email = $3 ($93)

7. i think there was some other stuff - bottom line - ur looking at around $100 - and thats without any minutes



ok the real place where i think softbank dropped the ball is localization. not sure of how many people have visted japan, but they really don't speak english here... they understand it , but not too comfortable with it.... so here's my list of stuff they gotta change...

a. start up language HAS to be japanese - its a simple fix, but still a drag for people

b. default time zone should be japan - hey its only got one time zone - lets at least adopt it

c. bookmarks in english - yahoo.com, apple.com you name it - come on.... it really should be the local sites...

d. maps - default location should be somewhere in that country.... i'm personally a socal resident (and hate sorta the fact that norcal comes up...), its one thing to have cupertino come up for us sold phones, but come on... for other countries? everyone knows other countries hate us... (really they do...) but the map should default onto that country

e. area codes - softbank really dropped the ball on this.... area codes are really weird in Japan - tokyo has an area code of 2 digits (and some have 3 digits)... specifically its like 03 - 1234 - 5678.... but it shows up as 031- 234-5678... you might this its not a big deal, but what if our numbers looked like (31) 0555-1234 instead of (310) 555 1234.... so my buddy was sighin about this...



so in short- my buddy loves it. but its a long road to get there, and if you don't know ur way around the iphone, its a bit of a drag... and they definitely gotta make it more 'local friendly'

anyone have a similar experience outside the us?

[jaja]

some more thoughts...

the weird japanese input thing is actually not bad. its like a 10key, with the phonetic letters then if you double click them they turn into the corresponding letters in that 'row'.... or you can keep it pressed and it sort of 'spiders out' to the optional letters

a big thumbs down on the 'contacts' in japanese... not sure if anyone found the abcdef vertical column thing annoying (can never tap on the right button)... but the japanese is worse... just imagine all 24 letters vertically together with 10 more japanese letters.... can't be done. its really frustrating to 'jump' to that letter.

[aziatiklover]

japan= CMDA iphone

[rbalfour]

No It's not CDMA.
refer to Code division multiple access - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


W-CDMA (UMTS 3G)

Refer to the W-CDMA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[scottdk]

Originally Posted by rbalfour

No It's not CDMA.
refer to Code division multiple access - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


W-CDMA (UMTS 3G)

Refer to the W-CDMA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ahhh... so that would mean Japan has been on 3G for years (W-CDMA), and just changed the name to match rest of the world when they finally got it?