Madplanet

Interesting and perceptive piece on what Apple faces in getting the iPhone to market in Japan and its prospects for success. The key point in my mind is whether consumers will opt for the convergence that the iPhone represents in one sense (i.e., you get your phone and mp3 player in the same box) but be willing at the same time to give up a lot of the things to which they’ve grown used: video recording, GPS, one-seg TV, Java apps (the SDK and Apple’s avid developer community could bridge the gap here), train pass and e-money functions, and so on. Conversely, iPhone sales could serve as a barometer for just how much the functional frills on Japanese phones are needed and used by consumers.