3G iPhone Mania was late to hit Japan but now after a month on the market local blogger “Nanchatte TechnoJunkie” points out that wider adoption is being limited by the absence of functions that westerners might feel are unnecessary. Amongst these are deal breakers such as the inability to text with one hand, no Emoji (Japan’ standardized emoticons), no strap hole and no infrared transmitter…
American readers are probably scratching their heads to think of the need for an infrared transmitter – who/why would anyone want one of those?
But in Japan all phones now come with other smart features that extend their use beyond that of just voice and text. In this case an IR or Bluetooth transmitter this enables communication to happen outside of the mobile network by simply “beaming” your vcard (address, phone number, photo, profile and other private details) to another persons phone. These are standard and work across any carrier, any make, brand or generation of Japanese phone.
According to the blogger “not having an infrared transmitter means you’ll never get the phone number or email address of a potential pick-up at a bar: Congratulations, you’ve effectively ostracized yourself from the dating circuit.”
Wow… isn’t it amazing how a user can find this simple dating function can be a deal breaker for an otherwise very popular mobile?
