Taro Kimura's Point of View
"Looking Forward to Advances in the World of the Mobile Phone"

A Little Late, but I Finally Bought an iPhone

I have been using mobile phones for about 20 years, starting with the TZ-803, which was the size of a lunchbox, but until now I used them only for voice calls. Inputting text on the keypad was a pain, and the displays were always too small and too dark for an old man like me.

The PC was my email tool, and I didn't download music. I watched 1-segment digital broadcasts on a special tuner unit and had no need for a mobile "wallet phone." For me, the mobile phone was no more than a portable public telephone.


That said, I have long been a Mac user and have purchased every new iPod since the first model. Today, I not only play music and video on my iPod Touch, I also used it for email. The release of the iPhone therefore meant a product had arrived that combined two individual devices I used everyday.

What's more, the new Mobile Me service allows synchronization with my PC. My assistant can schedule a meeting for me on my office PC, and it will automatically be added to the iPhone schedule via iCall.

Setting up the iPhone was much like setting up the iPod Touch, so I had no problems getting started, but I foresee possible issues for people who have only used conventional mobile phones until now.

When I had finished setting up my iPhone, I had my Dream Device, an iPod Touch with telephone functions. I think the addition of the new App Store function increases the fun of the iPhone by several times.

The App Store lets you purchase third-party applications. NTT DoCoMo's iMode offers the same functionality, but the App Store combines games, search tools, puzzles and more, some for free and some for a fee. As I write this, I see that the current top 10 Apps at the iTunes Store include Art Envi (115 yen), a paid service that lets users explore Western art classics, at number one. There is also iNote (450 yen), a notepad that supports Japanese-style vertical writing, followed by the GTS World Racing game (900 yen). Free Apps include Earth3D, a 3D animated earth, as well as Kanji-Ryoku Mini, a game for brushing up on Kanji character readings, and the iFree Solitaire solo card game.

I fell in love with Pac Man (1,200 yen). I send Pac Man around to eat up his surroundings just like the old days in the arcade. I also noticed in the user comments that most people think it is too expensive.

Internet radio tuner Apps are also becoming popular. There is allRadio (115 yen) and Tuner Internet Radio (700 yen), both of which let users listen to Internet radio from around the world by genre, region or language. Internet radio used to be something you listened to on your PC, but these Apps bring the world closer than ever.

The iPhone 3G can also be used outside your home country. There are conventional mobile phones usable in multiple countries, but I like the iPhone because it lets you use every single feature no matter where you are.

Still, there seems to be quite a lot of debate as to whether the iPhone surpasses conventional mobile phones. The answer depends on each user's preferences, but for me the iPhone is definitely an easy-to-use tool. One area in which the iPhone exceeds other mobile phones is its expandability. The iPhone's operating system is open for use by third-party applications developers. The knowledge of these professionals is sure to open up new possibilities. What's more, the iPhone might finally stimulate domestic players to abandon the so-called "Galapagos Islands" environment they have made of the Japanese mobile phone market. Whatever lies ahead for the iPhone, I am looking forward to evolution of the device when WiMAX comes into general use.

(End)