Japanese Mobile Phones As Mysterious Super-Gadgets: 2009 Edition
Every year or so, you’ll read the same line: Japanese mobile phones are amazing, futuristic überhandsets, and the rest of the world is stuck in the last decade. In 2009, though, that narrative has basically collapsed.
The gist of today’s NYT piece, “Why Japan’s mobile phones Haven’t Gone Global,” will sound familiar: Japanese mobile phones feature impressive technology that isn’t seen elsewhere; Japanese mobile users are more avid, age-diverse and common than American ones; and an assortment of barriers—including language-tied interface rules, a fundamentally different design philosophy, and entrenched consumer preferences—are keeping them from leaving the island. But for the first time in recent history, this is a good thing. Japanese mobile phones, as they are, sound absolutely fucking terrible.
Over-the-air mobile TV is interesting, but can—and will—be replaced by internet-based video services, and mobile phone payment systems, though great, are by no means impossible here—in fact, they’re on their way. Scanning the article for other futuristic features I’d like, I come up dry: Barcode scanning? Any phone with a decent camera and an appropriate app can do that. Waterproofing and solar power? For most these are gimmicks. Facial recognition unlocking? Please, no.
What you’re left with now is something of a superduperdumbphone: a bulky clamshell handset with an internet connection that relies on what amounts to a glorified WAP service, and a bloated, marginally useful list of features and, most importantly, a horribly convoluted, underdesigned proprietary OS. (Much more on that here). This kind of thing was impressive, but things have changed: We’ve got HTC Heroes, Palm Pres, iPhones and BlackBerrys. We have full-fledged, user-friendly operating systems, and flourishing app stores. We have phones that, despite lacking swiveling screens, experimental RFID technologies and barometers, are actually usable.
The article invokes an evolutionary metaphor:
Japan’s mobile phones are like the endemic species that Darwin encountered on the Galápagos Islands – fantastically evolved and divergent from their mainland cousins.
I’m not sure about “fantastically,” but the divergent bit is spot on. By means of different—and not necessarily favourable— consumer and industry habits and preferences, decked-out KDDI handsets and the like are in a completely different genus than the phones the rest of the world cares about, so much so that they can’t leave home; not because they wouldn’t be received well, or because the environment wouldn’t support it, but because they’d get eaten alive. [NYT]
Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
@Arnie Cunningham: Even bus time tables are given as qr codes, also Japan is a country of cash carrying lunatics and the integration of payment using you mobile is wrestling that away from them which is no mean feat.
Jesus_Jones
@Magic Beans? Sure, I'll Buy Some!!:
I guess you know nothing about the Japanese society, otherwise you would understand that in Japan the mobile phone is the most important tool _every_ Japanese owns, PC's are much less important.
Usual communication and music player functions aside Japanese phones have much more complex uses like learning languages, reading Manga, writing novels (yes, that's right), blogging, paying for services like drinks from vending machines...
But that's actually the reason why Japanese mobile phones never made it to west: We just use the phone for communication. Stuff like GPS maps, checking train schedules are very recent inventions in the West, albeit this is standard in Japan since years....
kamui47
Totally agree with NYT.
As a tech journo in Japan, I'm called upon to write something similar at least once a year.
This kind of thing: http://bit.ly/BcUkd and: http://bit.ly/OT8CG
Oh, and I got so sick of the atrocious local software I caved in and got an iPhone last week.
J Mark Lytle Hiratsuka
The iPhone is (unfortunately) insanely popular in Japan right now. Softbank is pimping it like a gaijin whore in a back alley of Shinsaibashi.
But I'm sticking with my shitty dumbphone.
Waterproofing and solar power sounds good to me - bring it on!
And throwing barometers and all the other stuff a top-of the line G-Shock has into the mix, shouldn't be too hard to do while you are at it.
yogibimbi
I'm sorry but you really do have this all wrong. I live in Japan and though many things in the phone are not needed/dated and there a few bad things (horrible computer sync) but the phones are actually really good.
For as long as I remember Japanese phones have had PCsite browsing, which when came out on the iphone many years after was sooo amazing to the US.
The payment system works in almost any shop now, and in a cash only society using a card (so you don't have to deal with physical money eg coins) that is not credit based.
Barcode reader? Fair enough...useless.
TV - free/handy. InternetTV would obviously cost more.
Cameras! The cameras on Japanese phones, in my opinion even beat many of the unlocked fancypansy phones you get in the US.
Solar/Water? Not a gimmick...INNOVATION! I don't know how many times water had been splashed on my phone and solar power would stop me searching for payphone in days in the city.
Lastly designs: The phones that are sold are the phones people use...the carrier phones in the US that are not your overpriced smartphones are so so so ugly. I would rather choose a Softbank design phone any day.
Screen sizes! My phone was the cheapest they had when I bought it and has a screen size of 2.6". Almost all phones have 3 inch or OLED screen nows! You can't get that anywhere else.
The Aquos shot for example has a thin sleek design, physical keyboard, multitouch touch screen which is better then I have used on the new Nokia devices (both in terms of OS and device) 10MP camera widewutofocus w/ flash, waterproof, and the typical features like PCsite web and tv, and the typically useless features like barcode reader. It is still the best phone I have ever used (besides iPhone.)
Who could go back to an extremely lowspec phone just because it syncs with your email?
http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/product/3G/933sh/#review
Omi Fuwaru
@Shawn Pero: That is NOT your typical Japanese phone.
Omi Fuwaru
@OtisCabeal:
I think it's Denver International Airport that has the magic toilet seat condom thingy, and it even adds some lower back support. It makes a for sanitary and comfortable preflight crap download.
Just for giggles, I would like to see an ad campaign for the tv-tuner, super-mega-ninjaphone in the US - JUST to track how many people are interested. I think you hit the nail on the proverbial head here by saying that it seems we're just not that interested in all that crap. And what we ARE interested in... we download and add to our customized appset to OUR liking.
Great article!
Magic Beans? Sure, I'll Buy Some!!
@olternaut:I don't take anyone seriously that doesn’t swear. I am very serious about that. I would not work anywhere i would have to watch my language, i just wouldn’t. But im not oppressed like you i guess.
If the whole fucking world just got over this BS swearing thing, we would all be doing a lot better.
Dillinger23
@WhaleMenace: hahahahahahahahaha alol funny stuff. Will you be here all week?
Dillinger23
@kamui47: In Australia, most mobiles sold by Telstra (including the crappy ones), come with a barcode scanner.
@kamui47:
You are totally correct.
Their phones are well adapted to their daily lives.
Close your mouth gaijin john herrman. You're just an outsider making comments to something you don't understand.
kaiesis
@OtisCabeal: Well... sometimes they've got the super nice high tech toilets, and then they've got the um... horizontal urinal is the best way I can describe them. Yeah, I never want to have to do anything more than take a piss with the horizontal urinals, and in the three years I lived there I never did do anything more.
Woden501
i would still take a japanese cell from 2 years ago over an iphone anyday. just works no hassle.
"Glorified WAP" is really pushing the limits of credibility there. Have you used WAP? Have you used iMode? iMode is just HTML for small screens! We're just starting to get there with phones that only cost a few hundred dollars with heavy contract subsidies.
iMode is glorified WAP the same way a PSP is a glorified TI-82 calculator...
the thing i dont like about American cell phones is the over simplification.
i dont need (or want) giant colourfull buttons and the lack of advanced options, i'm not a five year old retard.
EncNone
your article essentially confirms the articles of years ago... we are GETTING these features, while the japanese have HAD these features for years. it's also the reason why smartphones never really caught on- our smartphones have, thus far, only been as smart as their dumbphones. kinda like comparing japanese/american children. (ok, i kid... sort of.)
nowadays, we are finally coming close, mostly due to apps- which, i'd like to remind you, had a lot of their functionality "inspired" by japanese phone functions.
however, i wouldn't pass off a waterproof phone as a gimmick. maybe you live in a desert or something, but where i live it rains. and i work at a swimming pool. i wouldn't mind a rugged phone, either, now that i think about it. i like to go hiking and mountain biking.
willyolio
Maybe the Japanese don't have the cooler phones now, but we still have to wait 6 months after the Diamond 2 is released to get it here in the states....
The_Bronze
@Hello Mister Walrus: An intriguing, carefully thought out and well-crafted hypothesis—that, or they just like buttons.
The NYT article forgot to mention one essential fact: That many of the features are not only hardware gimmicks, but that those features are integrated into the daily life in Japan.
Two examples:
- Pay function: It is common to enter the huge subway system in Tokyo (2.916 billion passenger rides per year) by paying contact-free with the mobile phone.
- Bar codes: entertainment listings, advertising posters, magazine articles, e.g. _all_ come with barcodes for beaming essential information (like addresses, time schedules, e.g.) on the mobile phones.
Currently in the West only the iPhone is able to match most of the functions of Japanese phones have, but they are not part of the daily life (contact-free ticketing via mobile phones in Western subways anybody?)
kamui47
@Shawn Pero: To your point yes having a terrible hardware and OS does suck (thats why i stay away from Verizon :D)
Ali Khan
They are still leaps and bounds ahead of us in toilet seat tech.
OtisCabeal
@olternaut: "I expect it from the gizmodo readers but can not one "profressional" writer for Gizmodo get through a blog post without using foul language? No wonder the tech market doesn't take you that seriously."
Can/should we take your "profressional" opinion seriously?
@Ali Khan: If you go by the timeline in the article Sprint TV launched in the same year as Japanese phones got mobile TV (yes they are massively different, but in the end to the credit of Sprint). And Europe had it before either.
Japan has extensive 3G HSPDA networks (aka ATT 3G), and as the article mentioned a bigger problem was a rush to PDC which existed nowhere else.
The interesting bits about Japanese cell phones almost all end up being cultural (QR codes, E-delivered Magna, and novels) rather than technological. Heck even the NFC payment system is more a cultural thing than tech.
@windupbird81: I'm pretty sure Obamas blackberry has that functionality built in.
I was reading this on my iPhone on the NYT app this morning and thought this was pretty amazing to hear about.
@apollo89: lol,
psss, hide, the iFanbois are coming with pitchforks. You seem to have hurt their western-supremacy Apple-induced reality-distortion field.
@windupbird81: Sure they can launch nukes, but they probably have less service than AT&T! Without a signal, how are we going to drop da bomb? That aside, maybe Google Earth could help target where to fire.
@SuperTuna: Oh my god that looks awrful.
Shawn Pero
I'm guessing that most Japanese have cell phones paid for by the company they work for. Their work model is fairly low wages but amazingly flexible expense accounts and benefits. Or has that changed?
PaddyDugan
@Ali Khan: I think you're missing the point of the article - that the features Japan has had fo so long have been saddled with terrible hardware and OSs. We might be getting some of those features only now but at least the devices on the whole are much better.
Shawn Pero
I would like to hypothesize that this phenomenon is caused by cultural timing - the Japanese were eager to integrate complex functions into cellphones before the internet enabled them to do so efficiently and elegantly. In the absence of the internet, their alternative was to bolt on additional components, which more or less did what they were supposed to, but added complexity to their cell phone designs. Evidently, this created a design bias that persists today.
Hello Mister Walrus
Just thought I should mention that the Felica System used in these new phones have Massive potential that America has only just started using with credit cards. And to say that something sounds terrible with out actually trying it seems a little sceptical,and unfare in my opinion. I like US phones for there ease of use, but I respect the Japanese for there innovative attitude. take a look.
Matt Carrell
@Ali Khan: Remember the creative NOMAD? The newton? The amiga? HTC winmo phones?Having all the cool features first is useless if they all suck.
protohiro
I think its more that, even though Japan is gadget nirvana, phones are very often primary computing and media devices, and universally supported (within the market) features like payment and TV are really important.
The glorified WAP services, however trivial are actually being used, and while their interfaces are abysmally confusing for normal people, the Japs seem to manage.
Their cell-phone market has also been the test-bed for many technologies long before they come here, we westerners seem to just have plucked and repackaged their innovation into something fancy like the Hero, that for us is the first device that actually approaches that complexity but in a way manageable by us, and that is only thanks to the nice little OS (Android) that is slowly becoming a standard.
North Korean cell phones can launch nukes!! when are we getting that technology?
B-b-b-but I want optical zoom on my cellphone!
This really isn't anything new; Japanese cellphones *never* have been able to leave home, for much the same reasons stated. Do you seriously think that they would not have been selling them here a decade ago along with all the other CE widgets that get exported, if there was money to be made? The evolution metaphor is apt, in that the US and Japanese markets have developed into two very different environments, and the devices that fill their respective niches are quite different and not suited to the other. Japanese devices are inferior to what we have - for us. For the Japanese, our devices are inferior.
You wanna know the real reason we can't have phones from overseas? It's because we don't can't handle Transformers yet (See Michael Bay) :P :D
SuperTuna
Super-gadgets indeed. My prototype Japanese cellphone has built-in hardware support for time travel.
While the software to drive it is still in beta—sheesh, a misdirect to 1979 taught me a lesson about the hazards of beta testing, still itching from all that polyester!—it currently functions well enough for me to have posted this comment last Tuesday.
(sent 7/14/09 from my GundamPhone)
Having lived in Japan and Using Japanese Cellphones. I can say that they have the most advanced technologies in use. I went to Hong Kong 5 years ago and used an Octopus card, That was the most amazing Payment system I have ever used. Easy, Exact and Inexpencive. In Japan they now have the Cards but they also have embedded the tech into there phones! if you have never seen this tech take a look
Matt Carrell
I expect it from the gizmodo readers but can not one "profressional" writer for Gizmodo get through a blog post without using foul language? No wonder the tech market doesn't take you that seriously.
olternaut
They are still better than American phones, with superior techonoly and apps. Stop being jealous.
Not only that, they have been doing it for years, where as we are just starting out. They are essentially close to perfecting the technology. We aren't even close to that yet.
"What you're left with now is something of a superduperdumbphone: a bulky clamshell handset with an internet connection that relies on what amounts to a glorified WAP service, and a bloated, marginally useful list of features and, most importantly, a horribly convoluted, underdesigned proprietary OS."
Sounds like the iPhone.
apollo89
After a week in Tokyo, it is apparent that the Japanese have not only embraced the cell phone as a requirement for every second of existence, they have gone beyond the pale in versatility and sheer glee with wich they use these things. From the TV available, to the video calling the phones have superceded our wildest dreams.
The cost is a bit high- imagine a basic talk & data plan costing several hundred bucks every month.... add in the options and you got a car payment going out the door just to watch porn on your phone.
The possibility of these phones and applications arriving here are minimal as it would require a complete and total restructuring of existing networks and hardware- that ain't gonna happen.
So head to Japan, Korea, Singapore or some other emerging tech nation, as the odds of any of this stuff coming to our shores is a fantasy.
Sicpup
Very interesting. I want to point out that app stores aren't necessarily good things though. They're more like app filters. I'm getting pretty tired of control disguised as help.
stryder100
Super Productivity Calling Time Device?
Leonce
A huge thing is that Japan's total population is smaller while having a higher density than... say... America. So when it comes to upgrading new tech/infrastructure, they can have a smaller product 'launch' and it's easier to get into people's hands.
In contrast, it always blew me away that New Zealand had such horrid tech and mobile devices for being a smaller country. But if you look at the number of people living there, there just isn't enough potential profit for a company to invest in constantly updating infrastructure.
I agree that there is better/new technology coming but I fear you're missing the point that the Japanese have had TV, credit card payment etc for a few years now and we're just scratching the surface on these things now.
One thing the i wish the article had mentioned was if the Japanese CDMA technology was a limiting factor since its only used in the US, Korea and Japan and the ROTW uses GSM.
Ali Khan
I am using a Docomo P905i after my Nokia 7710 got wet at the beach. The 905i is really decent with all of the capabilities mentioned in the comments and article; I can't use them cuz I'm in NYC. Same thing with the 7710 which was the iphone before there was an iphone. I think its ridiculous that we're cheering an iphone camera in 2009 when a japanese keitai had them 10 years ago. I think its absurd that we in the West can't scan a barcode thats really a magazine written in code. I think its even more absurd that Westerners equate catch-up with innovation. When did the iphone get cut and paste? Three months ago?
Cacy Forgenie
@Mr_Stick: they have them at O'hare too, but i always feel like the seats are a little small, i do have a giant ass.....but then again so do most Americans
Wipeout King