Japan - page 4

The iPhone has hit a new all-time high when it comes to market share in Japan: representing a massive 36.6% of all Japanese smartphones in the first quarter of 2014.

This increase, which is up from last year’s 25.5%, was driven by Apple’s deal with NTT DoCoMo, a.k.a. Japan’s largest carrier. Apple launched the iPhone 5s and 5c with NTT DoCoMo back in September, and sales have been rocketing upwards ever since. Sales have proven so good, in fact, that Apple recently moved Doug Beck, chief of sales for Japan and Korea, over to handle the North American beat — where it is hoped he can apply some of the same sales mojo to increasing U.S. market share.

Notorious vegetarian Steve Jobs had few weakness. Black turtlenecks were one. The other was an extreme love of sushi.

Some of the West Coast’s best sushi places dotted Steve’s backyard, but Kaygetsu, a small sushi spot in Menlo Park, held the key to Steve’s heart stomach so tightly that Silicon Valley’s most impatient CEO could be spotted waiting up to 30 minutes like a normal pauper just to get his tongue on some hamachi.

Jobs loved the place so much he had a surprise birthday party for his wife there and even crammed Apple’s board of directors into the tiny restaurant for board meetings.

When Apple starts sniffing around, looking to buy a company, it’s time to pay attention. That goes double if they make chips. Back in 2008, Apple purchased P.A. Semi, a low-powered chipmaker, whose acquisition soon paved the way for an entire series of revolutionary ARM based chips. And recently, Apple purchased a low-energy chip maker who could help power the iWatch.

Now Apple’s out to do it again, this time with Renesas SP, if reports can be believed. But what for?

Three out of every four smartphones sold in Japan are reportedly iPhones, but how did the Apple devices get there to start with?

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son shed some light on that question during a television interview with Charlie Rose which aired earlier this week, in which he told the story of how he landed the iPhone back in 2008.

Forget Black Friday or Cyber Monday, New Year in Japan is the time of choice for retailers and shoppers alike — since this means Fukubukuro.

Literally translating as “lucky bag”, fukubukuro gives stores a chance to make room for incoming stock and drum up some publicity by selling off inventory at a massively discounted rate. The catch? That customers hand over their money for a grab bag they have no idea of the contents of.

In Japan and other Asian countries, an annual tradition that many retailers participate in during the holidays is called “Fukubukuro,” commonly referred to as “lucky” or “mystery” bags.

The concept is simple: you put together bags of heavily discounted products at random and sell them to customers who don’t know exactly what they’re getting. It may sound weird to westerners, but if you really think about it, an overweight old man in a bright robe coming down your chimney at night is a lot weirder.

Anyway, Apple Japan is participating in the tradition again this year, and it has confirmed the special sale’s kickoff date of January 2nd. Lucky Bags will cost 36,000 yen, or around $345. Bags usually contain items like iPods, random accessories and t-shirts, but customers have received more expensive hardware like iPads and even MacBooks in years past.

Supplies are limited, so Apple stores in Japan will definitely have lines of eager customers after New Years.

Source: Apple

An astonishing 76 percent of new smartphone sales in Japan for the month of October were either iPhone 5s or 5c handsets, according to recent data.

The report comes from a Kantar World Panel, and demonstrates just how far Apple’s share of the Japanese smartphone market has increased over the present quarter.

According to research consultants Counterpoint Research, Apple captured 34% of the 2.8 million Japanese mobile phone sales this September, marking a sizable increase from the estimated 14% seen in both July and August.

The news is even more impressive when, as Counterpoint director Tom Kang notes, “This is the first time any handset brand has crossed the 30% mark in the last decade in one of the most modern digital handset market in the world, Japan.”

We’re still waiting for Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer to start today’s earnings call, but now that the closing bell has rung Apple just released its official financial results for Q4 2013. So far the numbers look pretty good with Apple beating analyst estimations for revenue and profit with $37.5 billion and $7.5 billion respectively.

Sorting through the pile of information and numbers Apple just gave us can make your head spin, so we’ve broken it down for you. Here are the most important numbers you need to know from today’s earnings:

Apple fans are dedicated. Every single year, they brave the elements for sometimes weeks at a time, camping out in front of Apple Stores so that they can be first getting their hands on Cupertino’s latest iDevice.

Even by the standards of most Apple launches, though, the guys hanging out in front of Tokyo’s Ginza Apple Store are dedicated. They are braving a frickin’ typhoon to be first in line for the iPhone 5s.

At an event in Japan today, Sony unveiled the new PS Vita TV, a tiny set-top box that will sell for around $95 and look to compete with devices like the Apple TV. Not only will it let you stream content from services like Hulu and Sony’s own Video Unlimited service, but if you connect a DualShock 3 controller, it will also allow you to play PSP and PS Vita games on your TV.

In every country, there’s the holdouts, the also-ran carriers that haven’t inked a deal with Apple and so soldier valiantly on, selling Android and (gasp) Blackberries to their sad clientele. In Japan, this also-ran carrier happens to be the nation’s largest, NTT DoCoMo. But eventually, even the holdouts come around, and shares of NTT DoCoMo are up this morning following reports that Apple is in talks to bring the iPhone to the network.

Just to put the following report in the proper perspective, let’s start out by saying that two months ago — just two days after Apple debuted iOS 7 at WWDC 2013 — we predicted that the iPhone 5S would be released on September 20th later this year, after debuting ten days earlier.

How did we come up with that date? It was easy. We looked at what Apple had done in previous iPhone launches, and then took a look at the calendar for 2013. No soothsaying, no mysterious sources. It was as simple as that.

So when Japan’s largest industry newspaper, Nikkei, starts reporting that Apple will release the iPhone 5S and 5C on (yup) September 20th, you have to ask yourselves. Do they actually know? Or are they just fudging it?

Ever wish you could get a tourist photo that looks exactly the same as everyone else’s photo, only it has you standing in front of the monument/mountain/[insert cliché here]? No, of course not. But apparently there are plenty of people in Japan who do, and they can now use special camera stands, located at popular tourist spots, to do it.

The new A4000i electric scooter from Japan’s Terra Motors can hit 65km/h (40mph) and do 65km on a full charge (or “gallon”) of electricity. Used to travel 20km per day. The scooter will cost just $29 per year to run. That’s even less than my bike, which I fuel with a combination of delicious pizza and chocolate.

But the real reason I’m writing about the A4000i Is that it’s a giant, mobile iPhone dock.

Apple has applied for the “iWatch” trademark in Japan following months of speculation that has claimed the company will launch its first smartwatch later this year. According to the June 3 filing with the Japan Patent Office, which was spotted by Bloomberg, the iWatch name will cover products including “a handheld computer or watch device.”

A Tokyo court has today found Samsung guilty of infringing an Apple “bounce-back” or “rubber banding” patent that covers the popular scrolling feature built into its iOS platform. Apple has been using the patent against Samsung in a number of courtrooms all over the world, but back in April, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office deemed it invalid.

Remember when the Smart Cover for iPad was first announced, and it turned out Apple was apparently inspired by Japanese bath mats when coming up with their design? Looks like Jony Ive looked around his hotel room during a recent trip to Tokyo and let another everyday Japanese object influence the design of one of Apple’s latest products.

Apple has increased the prices for the iPad mini, iPad, and iPod touch in the online Apple Store in Japan.

According to Reuters, the Japanese yen continues to weaken after a devaluation across the past several months, which could be the reason for the price increase.

Every time Apple makes a new iPhone, it needs to go into production earlier and earlier to accomodate the bonkers-go-nuts launch demand for the latest Jesus phone.

No wonder, then, that iPhone 5S mass production is starting to kick off, with a new report saying that Sharp, one of Apple’s major panel providers, is revving up its engines to mass produce IPS LCD displays for the iPhone 5S, starting as early as next month.

Remember when people were wandering around idiotically saying the iPhone was a total failure in Japan?

Yup, pretty stupid, but it’s true that, at first, the iPhone didn’t catch on in Japan, and that was a problem for Apple, because Japan is the country where gadgets rule.

So what changed Apple’s fortunes in Japan? Women!

There’s no doubt that the iPhone is one of the most popular pieces of technology ever invented. The rush of people lining up for hours just to buy one usually causes competing carriers to trip all over themselves for the opportunity to sell the iPhone, except recently the list of carriers clamoring for the iPhone has slowly dwindled to just a few prospects.

Despite its successes, Apple is missing out on the chance to sell the iPhone to as many as 2.8 billion new smartphone customers, and according to some experts, the only thing that’s stopping them is Apple’s own rules.

Namco Bandai’s Idolm@ster series has been exclusive to Japan since it first debuted in 2005, so you’ve probably never heard of it, despite their popularity. But Namco has translated three of the titles into English and ported them over to iOS, giving fans all over the world the chance to experience the Japanese sensation for the first time.

The only problem is, they’re priced at $54.99 each!

Square Enix has been working hard to port its classic Final Fantasy titles over to iOS, and the next in the series, Final Fantasy V, is expected to hit the App Store by the end of the month. Like previous Final Fantasy ports, the game will bring updated visuals, and new controls optimized for touch-based devices.

Apple just released its latest iOS 6.1.3 update, which fixes a lock screen security flaw that allows users to bypass a passcode lock. The update also makes improvements to Maps for users in Japan.