1500 people in line for iPhone

The Daily Yomiuri features iPhone story on the frontpage.

More than 1500 people lined up overnight to get their hands on the Apple Inc. handset outside the store, where the much-hyped product first went on sale earlier than other stores in the morning. A kilometer-long line formed outside the store, which stopped accepting orders for the model before its doors opened at 7 a.m.


Link to the story (in Japanese)

iPhone 3G commercial

iPhone commercial

The commercial, entitled Hallway, debuted during keynote speech at WWDC on June 9th - now in Japanese. Notice how iPhone's interface changed from English to Japanese too.

iPhone Japan events

iPhone is almost here! Here is a list of major events taking place around Tokyo.  

• SoftBank Omotesando, from 6.45 - countdown ceremony
• Yurakucho Bic Camera main building, from 11.10 countdown ceremony with the SoftBank's president  Masayoshi Son
• Akiba and Umeda Yodobashi Camera Multimedia building, from 11.45 countdown events 

Will you attend? Are you standing in the line? Send us your story/photos/videos, did you get your iPhone? Share with us your story along with your link and nickname if you want a credit. 

Contact us at:

iphonejapanblog@gmail.com

Omotesando flagship store.

Omotesando SoftBank's flagship store for three days will sell only iPhones starting from 7AM July 11th. They also distribute brochures with waiting and contract instructions.

iPhone on sale starting from 7AM

According to the SoftBank's announcement iPhone will be sold starting from 7AM in the SoftBank flagship store - Omotesando, Tokyo.  Other shops will start sales at noon.  There is already about 20 people waiting in line in front of the Omotesando store. 

Source: Asahi

Apple Japan website updated

Apple Japan updated its website with iPhone buying information - you can get iPhone 3G at SoftBank stores (Apple Stores will not sell it).  

There is also a new information on the Softbank iPhone 3G website - SoftBank is preparing detailed information about iPhone sales process, updates soon.   

Japanese iPhone video tour

Apple sent out its lengthy video detailing the iPhone's 3G many features and uses. Instead of Bob Borchers we can see Japanese narrator wearing the same collarless black shirt. Unlike US version Japanese one does not present GPS navigation and traffic on the Google maps. How many more differences can you find?

New SofBank's iPhone 3G website

SoftBank just started new iPhone 3G website.  Some parts of it are still disabled and not active. Probably the most interesting information that we can read so far is that the Internet speed for Google Maps and YouTube will be limited.

 

iPhone prices for current SoftBank cusotmers

If you are a SoftBank customer who wants to upgrade to iPhone, here is the price you will have to pay for the pleasure:

Discounted with the new super bonus:
8GB model 30240Yen - monthly 1260Yen
16GB model 41760Yen - monthly 1740Yen

Compared to MNP and "New Contract" price, both 8GB and 16GB will cost 300Yen more per month. Keep in mind that all of the current "New Super Bonus" customers will need to payback remaining installments (not discounted!) for their phones. One can check remaining payments on the My SoftBank website.

This information came to us directly from one of the SoftBank's store managers.

Japanese keyboard, closer look

Recently Japanese keyboard was demoed on youtube. Let's look at the screens from the newest beta 8 firmware. We can select several keyboards to be active at the same time and switch between them with just one tap. Thus, it is possible to combine Chinese character recognition input with Japanese keyboard. This of course would be only good in the case where particular Japanese Kanji looks exactly the same as Chinese Hanzi. Kana keyboard looks really sleek and it is pretty convenient to use. Predictive input works just like expected serving us possible sentence parts, particles, and words. First that comes to my mind is its similarity with NEC cellphones Japanese input. There is still qwerty keyboard that works just like regular PC one with predictive input. We are still hoping for a future update that would give us written Kanji recognition in a way that current Chinese input does.