News tagged ‘Japan’

In a recent interview to Forbes the president of Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aime shared his thoughts on Apple. He said that iPod and iPhone are perceived as devices for casual games in most cases and that Apple is a serious threat for his company.

“Do I think that in the near term they can hurt us more than Microsoft? Absolutely.”

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Barron's rumor that Apple may be considering an acquisition of Sony, which appeared last Saturday, has gained more steam. According to Reuters, today the stocks of an electronic giant raised up to 3% at one point.

Analysts are skeptical on whether the rumors may be true as Apple can only execute a hostile takeover which will lower its reputation and lead to negative consequences on the Japanese market.

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John Coyne, who is a CEO at Western Digital, revealed yesterday that tablet devices like Apple's iPad are negatively affecting on the hard drive business. Talking in numbers, iPad may reduce shipments of low-end netbooks and laptops on 10-20 percent over the next few quarters. But Coyne tried to reassure investors the business will be still profitable:

"What I would say to investors is to look at the long-term demand for storage, the fact is the most appropriate solution for mass volume storage is hard drives and to look at the long-term progress the industry has made over the last 10 years".

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A new touch panel has been developed by Hitachi, which could make the use of iPhones much simpler, since it enables input by finger, glove or pen.

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The Japan Sumo Association has carried out their decision to hand out 60 iPads to 51 wrestling club in the country. The idea was to improve communication between the wrestlers themselves and the sports body. The Association decided that the wrestlers’ fingers weren’t small enough for ordinary mobile phones and that iPads might help them not to miss the information sent by fax or phone – something that had often happened before.

However, first of all the Association’s princely gesture was aimed at making amends after some scandals that involved gangsters, match-fixing and illegal gambling. Sumo came under harsh criticism for the lack of investigation and control, which was partly due to poor communication.

In America, you’d go in, sit at the counter, order your food from a waitress and get it delivered to you a few minutes later. In Japan, though, it is handled with what can seem to be an absurd level of detachment from your server: orders are placed through a touchscreen or ticket machine, where you pay for your food. That ticket is placed, without a word, upon the tray of someone working behind the counter, who later — and just as silently — brings you your food.

It was really interested, then, to see this iPad self-ordering system pop up on Japan Probe. Designed by Sharp Systems Products, it allows Japanese diners to order from a menu on their iPad, completely obviating the need for the aforementioned touchscreen ordering systems or ticketing machines. It’s a more feature rich implementation too: for example, you can pinch to make a picture of your food bigger, or drill down for ingredients.

The Japan Sumo Association is having trouble with the wrestlers and its managers. To put it simply, they don’t hear from them – either by fax or by phone! So, the sports body came up with a 21^st-century solution: iPads. The tablets will be distributed among 51 wrestling clubs in the country and they are expected to improve the communication speed. Maybe the 10-inch dimensions of the devices will be exactly right for these sportsmen, whose fingers are a little bit too large to use mobile phones comfortably?

Recently released Apple's rechargeble batteries were found to have many of the same characteristics as the Sanyo Eneloop model HR-3UTG batteries first developed in 2005 and launched for sale in 2006. Both batteries retain over 75% of their charge after three years of use. In addition to having identical performance, the Sanyo rechargeables also have the same minimum capacity of 1900 mAh. Moreover, Apple's new rechargeable batteries do not offer any indication of who manufactured them.

Experts took apart one of the AA batteries from Apple, but did not find any evidence on the inside that they are manufactured by Sanyo. The batteries are the first Apple’s product, which doesn’t have an Apple logo on them. In fact, the only thing known about these batteries is what that they were made in Japan. Sanyo's corporate headquarters is in Japan, and its Eneloop batteries are manufactured also in Japan.

And batteries have almost similar prices: Apples batteries retail for $29 and Sanyo Eneloop – for about $22.

Apple has not commented this situation.

According to the Reuters news agency, one of the Japanese authorities demanded from Apple to provide customers with the information about obtaining spare batteries for the first generation IPod Nano with respect to the fire hazard from the superheated batteries.

The authorities requested Apple to issue on the Internet an easy-to-understand statement to explain how the users of the device involved in four cases of minor burns in Japan will be able to receive spare batteries and appropriate consultations.

The Japanese authorities began to put pressure on Apple on this issue last week but the company referred to the fact that the matter had been transferred to the supplier of batteries. The company said that safety would be considered as their top priority.

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This it is. The long waited white iPhone 4 with full packaging.

Thanks to our colleagues from Japan here is a nice gallery with many pictures:

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Engadget reports about another hack made in the Book category of an iTunes App Store. 42 of the top 50 books now belong to a seller named Thuat Nguyen, whose company is written as “mycompany” and its site is www.home.com. Almost all of these books have been published in April and have little to no customer reviews or ratings. Though it is claimed that the books are available in English and Japanese language, people report they are actually appear to be in Vietnamese.

Engadget also claims that many people report about iTunes account hacking that became a reason of spending hundreds of dollars on above-mentioned books without any wish and permission of its owners. That cannot be a coincidence, so it is recommended that every Apple customer will check his purchase history in his Apple Account information.

Apple hasn’t yet commented on the situation.

In spite of the problems with ordering and receiving, the iPhone 4 has enjoyed a really successful launch across the world. The first place for the iPhone 4 to go on sale was Japan, with more than 300 people lining up at the main store for Softbank, the mobile carrier for the iPhone 4 in Japan. By early afternoon all the devices in stock had been sold.

The next countries to launch the new device were Germany, France and the UK, with the U.S. East coast following them shortly afterwards. At most of the places the lines were incredibly long – actually the longest for any iPhone release.

Yesterday Apple presented new version of the MobileMe subscription service alone with its new design and Find My iPhone application.

New version of the MobileMe mail was in beta since May, and those who wanted to try it had already had an opportunity. Here is a shortlist of innovations:

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So today is the day when iPhone 4 becomes available for preorder in the U.S., Germany, France, Japan and the U.K.

The Apple's site reveals that the white model is currently unavailable, which was explained by yesterday's AT&T memo, where it is said that supplies may be scarce at launch. The AT&T site reveals that white iPhone 4 is "coming soon", though it is disclosed in the memo that the company's stores will actually take reservations for white model, but it will be shipped later this summer.

Anyway, black iPhone 4 and 8GB iPhone 3GS may be freely preordered, and then picked up in stores or shipped directly to your home on June 24.

The price for iPhone 4 with a two-year contract with AT&T in the USA is $199 for 16GB model and $299 for 32GB model.

The price for unlocked iPhone is €629 for 16GB model and €739 for 32GB model in France, the prices for U.K. customers were revealed earlier.

So iPhone 4 is finally unveiled and what do we have in it? Here is a list of hardware upgrades:

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