SoftBank iPhone Announcement: Free Wifi, watch TV with iPhone, and emoticons in Japan by the end of 2008

In the announcement of SoftBank regarding the new line up of cell phones for winter, they also made some exciting ones for Japanese iPhone users. Here are the announcmenets.

1. Free wifi for iPhone users at about 3,500 locations (McDonald’s, train stations, airport, and etc.)
   
   
2. An external unit that serves as a mobile digital TV receiver and battery. This is seen in the following image. As you can see, the design is surely inspired by the iPhone itself, but it’s not availble in white! 
   
   
   
   What’s neat is that if you just want to watch TV, you do not need to hook the device to the iPhone. The unit pairs up with the iPhone, and transfers the TV contents via wifi to a TV app, which will be provided by SoftBank for free.
   
   This will be available in December for about 10,000 yen (about $100). I personally need the battery over the TV function, but it’s nice to have the TV function just in case. 
   
   This is definitely a creative way to enable watching TV on iPhone.  I think we're going to see other TV tuner products like this soon in other countries using a similar concept.  
   
   
3. As rumors have already circulated, within this year, the iPhone will support emoji (the Japanese word for emoticons). 

It seems SoftBank is definitely listening to its consumers in Japan.   Well, I'll probably get the the TV / Battery pack.  

Stay tuned and thanks for reading!

Source:
IT Media (Japanese) - You can also see actual photos of the TV / Battery pack itself. 

iPhone vs. Japanese cell phones: 15 Features that iPhone doesn’t have for the Japanese market

In Japan one of the things SoftBank make sure you understand when you buy an iPhone is the features that the iPhone doesn’t have or cannot use. Below is an image of that section from the paper work.

Explanation and translations corresponding to the numbers in the image are:

1. S! Addressbook Back-up – Basically it’s a service to back up and sync your contacts to a server. A nice feature included in the service is birthday notification via SMS. To learn more about this service, see here – it’s in English =)
   
   
2. S! Friend’s Status – It’s a service that lets you set your status and mood. You can also check up on your friends’ status. See here for more info.
   
   
3. S! Info Channel – News and weather info are delivered to your cell. What’s cool is that supporting cellphones well display the current weather conditions on your default home screen.
   
   
4. Remote lock – In the case you lose your cellphone, you can remotely lock your cell phone.
   
   
5. Yahoo! Kids – Basically this service blocks the kids from accessing inappropriate sites.
   
   
6. Web Access Restrictions – This blocks users from visiting sites such as matching sites for teenagers.
   
   
7. Ichi Navi – It’s basically a service for parents to know where their children are via GPS. See here for more info.
   
   
8. Voice Mail Plus – An upgraded voice mail service with more message capacity for other SoftBank cell phones.
   
   
9. S! Felica – Basically an e-wallet and electronic train pass. See here for more info.
   
   
10. E-Comics – Basically new phones can download a special comic viewer that lets them buy digital copies of comics.
    
    
11. Video services
    
    
12. Infrared functions
    
    
13. 1 seg – function for digital audio / video services
    
    
14. bar code reader
    
    
15. cell phone ring tones – Since iPhone users can only buy ring tones from iTunes, they won’t be able to buy anything from the mass selection of ring tones provided by the carrier. Bummer.

So there you have it. Features and services that the iPhone does not have in the Japanese market.  It's interesting that they didn't mention that you can't use emoticons on the iPhone.   Well, at least until the next version of iPhone OS as reported by MacRumors.  Maybe, SoftBank knew the feature was coming... 

Deciphering how and what to pay for an iPhone in Japan

How much and how do you pay?
The way you pay for an iPhone in Japan is a little bit unconventional, perhaps hard to understand would not be an overstatement. I will use the 16GB model as the main example.

Basically you have two options:

1. Pay up front the full price of 16GB - 87,840 yen (about $878)
   
2. Pay in 24 installments - 87,840/12 = 3660 yen per month (about $37)
   

Now when you enter in to a 2 year "New Super Bonus" contract, every month you get a discount of 1,920 yen (about $19). If you accumulate all the discounts, it becomes 46,080 yen (about $460). So if you subtract that from the regular price (87840 - 46080), which is 41760 yen (around $418). This would be the actual price you're paying for the iPhone 3G 16GB.

If you went with option 1, and terminate the contract, you basically just don't get the discounts.  If you went with option 2, and you terminate your contract, you just have to pay the remaining installments.  Of course, you won't receive the discounts either.  

Urgh!!! A crack on my white MacBook!!!

Is this fixable?  I guess I have to drop by the Apple Store.  Or maybe this is a sign telling me to get a new MacBook Pro?

Transform your iPhone 3G into a mini iMac with iClooly

I posted about iClooly for the iPod Touch back in June. Apparently, it’s now also available for the iPhone 3G as well.

What’s cool with the iClooly is that it swivels so you can have your iPhone / touch in either lanscape or portrait view. The only problem is it wouldn’t work if your iPhone / touch has a case.

The iClooly for iPhone is available on iClooly.com for $47.00.

Buying an iPhone in Japan

I have a confession to make. I finally took the plunge and bought an iPhone 3G.

Stay tuned for unbox photos and an in-depth post on iPod touch vs. iPhone where I’ll detail the changes I experienced upgrading from the touch to the iPhone.

For this post, I’ll talk about my experience getting an iPhone in Japan.

Preparing to go
As a foreigner, sometimes getting a phone can be a nightmare. So I made sure I had my passport, credit cards, and alien registration card with me before I head to my local SoftBank store.

At the store
The process went rather smooth.  I had been using a Nokia 6680 phone with SoftBank for about two years. It seems like changing phones is a breeze for foreigners. All I had was to show my alien registration card.   

Of course, I picked the white 16GB model. I had to fill in some paper work and listen to explanations about the data plan and mainly how iPhone is different from the typical Japanese cell phones. Then the clerk took out an iPhone and activated it. It was a rather fast process – about 20 minutes in total.

At home

Once I got home, I hooked the iPhone up to my Mac to finish setting up. In particular, it was nice to give me the option to set it up as a new iPhone or restore from the backup of my iPod Touch. I decided to set it up as a new iPhone because there are some apps on my touch I don’t want on my iPhone.



Anyway, the setup was a breeze. After that, I set up my email accounts and MobileMe accounts. There were some hiccups with MobileMe. For some reason, my Address Book on Mac suddenly had duplicate entries of everything while the iPhone didn’t. I restored my Address Book using Time Machine, and re-synced everything again.  Everything seems to be working fine for now.  


That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!

The Sanctuary: Beautiful and modern charging station for your iPod touch / iPhone / and everything else (almost)

Came across this from an email newsletter from AssistOn (a Japanese store that sells designer items).

The Sanctuary is a stylish charging station from Bluelounge. According to their website, users can “charge their cell phone, PDA, Blackberry, iPod, MP3 player, and Bluetooth headset simultaneously in one location.”

It is available on Bluelounge website for $129.95. It comes in white and black. The inner tray is reversible with two colors black and tan.  The tan color would work well with wooden surfaces and Muji-style interior. More info and details are on their website.

This one is on my wishlist…


Thanks for reading!

Looking for an iPhone case – SwitchEasy Colors maybe?

I am on the edge of getting an iPhone, but I haven’t plunged yet. I thought, what case would I get if I did buy an iPhone.

So I looked at the reviews as iLounge.   The highest rating was SwitchEasy Colors, which got an A. SwitchEasy Colors is a silicone case, and has several color variations including white. But after reading some reviews, the white color one doesn’t seem to stay white for too long. If I were to go with SwitchEasy Colors, I’d probably go with orange simply because it’s the theme color of the current company I’m working in.

But it would hide the shiny white of the white iPhone 3G! I guess I need to find a clear hard case…

Just got Wii Music!

Just got a package from Amazon in Japan. It's Wii Music!!! Unfortunately, I won't be able to get to it as I'm swamped with work. But I'll try to play it and have impressions soon. Meanwhile, here are some unboxing pics.

Yay!  It's Wii Music!

Here's another shot with the cover slid off. 

Tip: How to watch videos on your iPod touch in portrait mode

This is a nifty feature I stumbled upon yesterday when I loaded a video podcast in from the Music app instead of the Videos app from the iPod touch. The cover art used to be displayed, but instead, surprisingly, I found the video playing vertically. If you turn the touch horizontally, it’ll switch to landscape mode. I hope this will probably make it to the video mode in the future.

So to recap, to watch a video podcast in portrait mode:

1. Go to the Music app
   
2. Go to Podcasts
   
3. Choose a video podcast
   
4. Choose a episode
   

How about TV shows, movies, and other videos?
Since this feature is only in the Music app, the only way I know to get it to work is to create playlists with video, and play the video from playlists. So here’s how you get videos to play on the touch in portrait mode:

1. Go to the Music app
   
2. Go to Playlists
   
3. Choose the playlist that has videos 
   
4. Choose a video, and voila!
   

Thanks for reading!

Requested feature for MobileMe and iPhone 3G / iPod touch: iDisk access please

Now that the iPhone and touch can view Office and iWork files, it’d be very very nice to be able to access files in my iDisk.

iDisk is a feature of MobileMe that, according to apple, allows you to easily “store, access, and share files online.” It’s “accessible from any web browser, Mac or PC at Me.com,” but it’s not accessible from an iPhone or touch…

So hope they address that soon in future updates. If you really want to access files in the clouds, you might want to try DropBox. They have a web app for iPhone / touch so you can access your files that are stored on DropBox.  

The $999 MacBook White

What does the Apple Notebook keynote event mean for Shiny White Gadget lovers?
Apple announced new MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and new Cinema Displays today. TUAW has coverage of the event and you can see the event on Apple’s website. Everything seems to be glass, black, or aluminum in the announcement, so what does it mean for the shiny white gadget lovers?

The MacBook White
Luckily, the original white MacBooks are not going to be discontinued. They are renamed to MacBook White on Apple’s website, and are now available for $999.

The basic specs are:

• 2.1 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
  
• 1GB DDR2 Memory
  
• 120GB hard drive
  
• Intel GMA X3100 graphics
  

You can find more info and details are Apple's website.  One thing I like the MacBook White over the new MacBooks is that it has a FireWire 400 port.

If you always wanted that white MacBook, it’s now $999 on Apple's online store.

Gadget Ad: WILLCOM 9 - Another white cellphone in Japan

The WILLCOM 9 a Japanese cellphone that has a supposedly high performance CPU of ARM 11 comes in black and white.  You can learn more about the WILLCOM 9 in the English press release here.  

Softbank’s iPhone 3G TV Commercial in Japan

Softbank recently started to air a new commercial that is revolved around the iPhone. This series of commercials from Softbank is quite strange. The dad of this family is a white dog, and basically he got a new phone, which is the iPhone.  He’s trying to hide it from the family, but the family finds out.  Then family plays around with the iPhone by flicking through a Japanese comic strip app (I think).  See for yourself below.

Piccadilly @ Shinjuku, Tokyo – The Shiny White Movie Theater

Piccadilly, a new cinema complex that opened in July this year in Tokyo, ought to keep shiny white gadget lovers happy. According to its brochure, the design concept was a “pure white theater.” The “white” was chosen to symbolize a blank canvas that movie creators paint on.

If you’re in Tokyo, you can check it out in Shinjuku 3 Cho-me 15-15. It is close to the Isetan and Kinokuniya bookstore from the east exit of the train station.

Here are some photos from its website below. For more photos, you can check out their website (Japanese).










Thanks for reading!

A closer look at Japan’s SoftBank iPhone 3G price plan

SoftBank allows you to pay the cost of the iPhone itself in 12 or 24 monthly installments. The monthly plan excluding the costs of iPhone consists of:

1. A calling plan - with White Plan being the least expensive at 980 yen (around 9 dollars)
   
   
2. A S! Basic Pack - 315 yen (around 3 dollars)
   
   
3. A data plan called Packet Flat Rate Full – Unlimited Mail/Web use starting from a fixed monthly charge of 1,029 yen (around $10) to a maximum of 5,895 yen (around $59)
   

About Packet Flat Rate Full
If you stay under 1,568,000, which is around 1.6 megabyte, you will pay 1,029 yen for the data plan. Once you exceed 1.6 megabytes, you will be charged 0.084 yen for every 128 bytes until you reach around 9 megabytes. One you reach 9 megabytes, you will be charged 5,958 for data, and your data plan automatically becomes unlimited.

The minimum monthly fees: 2,324 yen (around $23)
The minimum fees you have to pay to use an iPhone is 2,324 yen (980 + 315 + 1,029).

That may sound cheap, but…
Realistically speaking, to fully reap the benefits of the iPhone and staying under the minimum data usage allotment of 1.6 megabytes, it’s pretty hard.

According to Mac Fan October issue, here are some stats for reference

• Receiving 13 mails with photo attachments will put you at 9 megabytes of data usage
  
  
• Accessing Apple’s website 18 times with put you at 9 megabytes of data usage
  

My Mindset

I think forcing myself to stay under 9 megabytes of data usage is quite painful. 9 megabytes, that’s really little. That’s like 2 to 3 mp3 song files.

It’s probably better to just expect to pay 5,985 for the data plan. And if I stay under the data usage of 9 megabytes, then I'll consider myself lucky that month.


Source:
Mac Fan October 2008 Issue
SoftBank

Gadget Ad: Shachihata Stylish Name Stamps

With the introduction of credit cards, signing is becoming more widespread in Japan. In the business world, however, using a name stamp is still the tradition.

The ad below showcases the Capless 9, a stylish name stamp. As you can tell from its name, the stamp doesn't have a cap and its diameter is 9 mm (hence the 9 in the name).  The stamp can be purchased for 1260 yen (around 12 dollars) with your name engraved.  

The official home page (in Japanese) with more pictures is here.

Awesome User Experiences: A conference hall where you won't miss a single minute even if you need a bathroom break

A few weeks ago, I attended a seminar on corporate marketing. The seminar was held at the Marunouchi Building, which is a building in a skyscraper district in Tokyo. There was a hall where the lecturers did their presentations and outside of the hall was the lobby and the restroom. What was cool was that both the lobby and restrooms had speakers that broadcasted the mic inputs in the hall.  

So, if you needed to go to the restroom in a middle of a session, you could still listen to the session in the restroom so you wouldn't miss a single minute.

Imagine if they could do something like that in theaters, but then that would require each screen to have its own restroom.

Thanks for reading SWG!

Link:
Marunouchi Building Hall and Conference Square (Japanese)

KOR ONE water bottle now available for order

After some delays, KOR ONE became available last Thursday. You can order it online at their website.

For previous coverage of KOR ONE, click here.

iPod touch 2G can be a phone with fring

You can now get a free VoIP app called fring for the iPod touch from the App Store. This is pretty big news for iPod touch 2G owners as well as those still contemplating on buying touch 2G or iPhone 3G.

According to the comments section in iLounge’s article, iPod touch 2G does work with fring. It’ll require a compatible microphone such as Apple’s In-Ear Headphones with Remote and Mic.


Wifi everywhere + iPod touch 2G = a phone!
If you can get a wi-fi connection everywhere like using CradlePoint’s PHS300, then your iPod touch 2G can be truly used as a phone.

PHS300 + iPod touch 2G = the closet thing to an iPhone with an iPod touch 2G
All you’re missing is the SMS, contacts integration, and a camera (well, and a real GPS, but with wi-fi, you can still find your location with Google Maps).

Ok, so in order to make the touch 2G into an iPhone, what do you need with you at all times?

• iPod touch 2G (with fring installed)
  
• PHS 300 + modem (of course, with a data plan)
  
• A camera
  

iPod touch 2G vs. iPhone 3G: my decision
As for me, I’m still leaning towards buying an iPhone 3G. One reason is that I like to take lots of pictures, and I don’t want to bring a separate camera. Right now, I’m holding out just a little bit to see if a 32GB iPhone comes out.

On a side note, considering a VoIP app got approved, there are no reasons why Skype won’t and can’t release their official app.

Thanks for reading!

Source:
iLounge
fring

Purchase and Unbox Pics: Buffalo DriveStation Duo 1.0 TB (HD-W1.0TIU2/R1)

So I finally decided on a backup solution for my MacBook. I couldn't find a "white" two hard drives in one enclosure solution I like, so I settled with the DriveStation Duo (Unbox pics can be found here on Flickr).  It's not white so I'll be putting it under my desk where it's not visible.

Here in Japan, I bought it for 19,840 yen (around 180 USD). If you're in the US, on Amazon, you can find it for $253.99.

What I like:
It's 1TB split among 2 500GB hard drives. Here's what I like about it:

• no power brick 
  
• auto power feature - Turns on when your computer is on and off when computer is off. 
  
• dual interface for USB and firewire - I could use firewire and leave one more USB port open.
  

How I'm using it + Impressions

Instead of using RAID, which is supported, I wanted to use one drive as an external drive for data and the other one for Time Machine. The drives are pre-formatted as FAT32, so the first thing was to reformat to Mac's format and configured it. The process was smooth, no problems.

The fan seems quiet, and so far it's working like it's suppose to. If you plan to put the hard drive a little further from your computer, you might find the USB cable and firewire it comes with too short.

Want another 2TB one for my Mini
My Mac Mini, which serves as a media center, is hooked to two separate 500 GB hard drives right now. A 2TB Drive Station Duo would be nice for my Mini - one less cable and one less plug. I'll wait and hope some price dropping begins before I fill up 500 GB hard drives.

Unbox photos here!
Lastly, you can find the unboxing photos here at Flickr.

Thanks for reading SWG!

OMG: What happened to my iPod earphones?!

I'm not sure what happened... maybe it was under my MacBook when it was super hot... oh well, one pair of iPod earphones down the drain...

Epson Colorio me E-530 – printer for digital photo lovers

The Epson Colorio me E-530 is a photo printer. Put the memory card (the popular formats are supported) in, choose the pictures you want to print, wait, and you’re done.

Features of the E-530 include:

• adding a frame to your photos
  
• enhance and retouch photos
  
• trim photos
  
• can be powered by lithium batteries (optional)
  
• wirelessly print from your cell phone through IR
  

The E-530 comes in three colors:

1. Ice silver
   
2. Sugar pink
   
3. Silky cream
   

Epson sells it for 22,980 yen (around 217 dollars) on their website in Japan.

BREAKING: Nintendo announces the Nintendo DS i

As a press conference earlier today, Nintendo puts the rumors to rest with the announcement of the new version of DS. Here are the details:

General Info

• Name is called Nintendo DS i
  
• Release date: November 1 st, 2008 in Japan. 2009 for other countries. 
  
• Price: 18,900 yen (around 180 dollars)
  

Hardware: Smaller than the Lite with 2 cameras and SD card slot

• Form factor is similar to the Nintendo DS Lite. It is now 2.6 mm thinner.
  
• Both screens are now 3.25 inches (previous DS screens were 3 inches)
  
• Both screens are touch-compatible
• “2” .3 mega pixel camera – one on the inside and one on the outside
  
• Comes in black and white.
  
• SD memory card slot
  
• The GBA game slot is now gone
  

Software: Introducing the Nintendo DS i Shop

• built-in software to playback mp3 music files
  
• Nintendo DS i Shop (basically, the DS version of the Wii shopping channel)
  
• From this shop, users can download a Nintendo DS i browser (free) to browse the web. The other application that is free is the “Ugoku Memo Cho,” translated as toe “Moving Memo Pad" - an app for you to draw comic flip books. Users can also buy other apps called DSi Ware like calculator. Sounds like iPhone’s apps store.
  

Other stuff
At the press conference, there are also other announcements such as new DS and Wii games. For me the big news is Punch Out for Wii coming in 2009. You can find more coverage at IGN.

The Nintendo DS i sure has some similar things with the iPhone. Black and white color variation. Nintendo DS I Shop and App Store. Hmm… interesting ain’t it? Perhaps Miyamoto-san and Jobs-san are good friends.

Source:

• Nintendo Press Release (Japanese)
  
• IGN
  

Best of SWG for September

1. iPod touch 1G vs. iPod touch 2G
   
   
2. iPod touch 2G vs. iPhone 3G
   
   
3. SH906i: Sharp’s Answer to iPhone?
   
   
4. Trying to make iPod touch 2G into an iPhone 3G using CradlePoint’s PHS300
   
   
5. iPod Touch Tip: How to take screenshots with iPod touch
   

Thanks for reading!