Thank you, Japan. Now I know I'm not alone.

But it has innovative new features like no support for 3G and the ability to not run any third party software!

Had this convo with some people the other day; US companies are just here to fark the consumer over for as long as possible, for the least amount of progressive work as possible, with absolutely no updates to any new technologies; except the really farking cheap ones. Cup of Ford/Chevy anyone?

I sure do hate that inanimate object... lets intercept the shipping trucks and burn them all right there on the interstate!

/these threads make my head hurt

MoreCowbell!
Yes, clearly poking fun at an overhyped product is taking things far too seriously.

I've seen a few of those Japanese cell phones. They're like PDAs without the work software and half the price of our cell phones.

I think its just our mentality that were the best in the world. Companies here know that they can gouge us because they know that we won't compare ourselves to other countries (unless its to determine our superiority).

Or maybe its because half of our 30+ crowd can't seem to understand technology (see Wii pron article) so they hold us back while we try to teach them.

It's a good time to get into the handkerchief and screen cleaning solution industries. After one day of normal usage the iPhone's display is gonna be so nastied up it's not going to be funny.

Clipsy

too bad poking fun at it only serves to build more hype for it.

It's like terrel owens, or paris hilton...

MoreCowbell!
too bad poking fun at it only serves to build more hype for it. It's like terrel owens, or paris hilton...

...or iPod, c.2001.

People have been able to surf the internet for some time now. I would with my old treo. It's nothing new. The difference the iPhone makes is the ability to see the ACTUAL web page you would see on a desktop with the ability to ZOOM IN on and SCROLL IN ALL DIRECTIONS to the areas you want. That's very different. Very new.

The entire multi-touch screen is exclusive. The random access voicemail is exclusive. The iPod browsing features are are, of course, exclusive and really farking cool. It's like saying, "yeah, I have a 1930's model bellows camera. What the hell do I need a state of the art Nikon for"?

I'm sure there's others that I missed, but you get the gyst. All of the stuff their talking about in Japan is the support system the country has for phone systems. Nothing to do with the iPhone except for the 3G which makes sense since it's not that widespread. Jobs said they were working on adding that feature on future models, which again makes sense... you wanna pay for something that you can't take full advantage of?

idislike japan and apple... this makes me LOL.

Still waiting for a US 2.4G network, nevermind 3G.


/Wishing for .Com days where companies would sink millions into infrastructure, then go out of business, so it would be cheap and consumers wouldn't have to pay for it... only shareholders
//Sorry about your retirement nest-egg, gramps. But I need HD-quality downloads on a phone!

Honest Bender:
My PSP has been able to do that for more than a year now.

Ummm, the PSP isn't a phone and it's huge compared to the iPhone. That's like saying, "yeah? Well my sony vaio laptop has been able to do that!

And is the internet surfing native or part of a third party thing? I honestly don't know and I didn't see the feature on their website.

I think it's a pretty sexy phone, but the Koreans have had 8MP camera phones for a year or two now. 8MP!!

My 8525 will do for now. I have MobiTV and XM Radio Mobile to keep me happy.

Perhaps the real reason that the US hasn't upgraded to 3G is that the vast majority of people neither need nor want all these broadband features on a phone when they can very easily get them from a computer at home. The Japanese have to have this stuff on the go because they're always running from various giant rubber monsters or insane children with amazing mental powers.

Treo to Japan. Already been there too.

Perhaps the real reason that the US hasn't upgraded to 3G is that the vast majority of people neither need nor want all these broadband features on a phone when they can very easily get them from a computer at home.

Cingular has 3G in the US, Sprint has EVDO, Verizon has EVDO: all broadband speeds. Not sure what you're talking about. Apple just CHOSE not to make theirs compatible with Cingular's 3G network. Kinda silly given Steve-O's focus on the internet and media capabilities of his phone.

That said, the Cingular 3G network has failed to impress me. Sprint's EVDO network kicks ass and WiMax is right around the corner which will change our phones as we phone it, much more than the iPhone.

*as we "know" it*

/not "phone" it

OK, but the iPod was a totally original idea!

It wouldn't surprise me at all if the total area of 3G coverage in the US is greater than Japan's area. The problem is the huge area that isn't covered and has a small population. It isn't economical to cover many parts of the US. In Texas there are 15 cities with 3G coverage but that translates to only 4 metropolitan areas: DFW, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. That doesn't include the surrounding areas. If you look at the coverage maps 3G doesn't even show up until you zoom to the "City" level and then you can see that coverage hardly goes beyond city limits.

So what if it isn't making waves in Japan. Japan is a strange place.

Same thing with Finland. I've got a bunch of friends there who laugh at my phone: it's brand new for me, but it's around the year 2000, tech-wise for them.

I used to work for a company that reverse-engineered Japanese products and sold the data to US companies.

Every two months we sent a couple guys to Japan to buy the latest and greatest gadgets. We always bought at least two of each item because we would pretty much destroy one of them by taking it apart. We sometimes even peeled back the circuit boards, layer by layer.

The consumer gadgets in Japan were always available two to five YEARS before they were in the US.

I remember telling people back in 1997 that I had seen a cell phone with a digital camera, color screen and a PDA that was less than half the size of a pack of cigarettes. Most people didn't believe me. This was years before "American" cell phones even had cameras or color screens. I saw a small microdrive MP3 player in 1997, probably 512MB or 1GB, but still...1997! We bought 2 40" plasma HDTVs in Japan in 1998. (We sawed one in half - a $12,000 TV - eek!)

So yeah, the Japanese are giggling at us. Fortunately they are too polite to laugh in our faces.

And I still don't want a cellphone. I am doing quite well with my landline that is connected to the wall with a wire.

It isn't even a cordless phone. At least it is still touchtone and not rotary.