Japan’s super-advanced mobile web: Too unique to serve as a global blueprint?
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Read a book? And indeed, there is about an even split between people reading books and people playing with their mobiles. Remember that a lot of the trains run underground, and not every line has a cell phone signal for every provider.
I think the reason for the popularity of the mobile Internet is that there is no complexity involved to use the Internet from your phone. Everything is designed for the phone; you can buy things, you get billed for it, and it shows up at your house. On the computer, you have to type in details every time, and credit cards aren't very common, so you have to arrange some other way of paying. It's a pain.
Some other nice integration -- if you buy a JAL ticket and check-in with your mobile, you can use the phone as your boarding pass. I can check in for my flights on my US-based cell phone, but that's not going to get me through security. (Note that Japan also has realistic airport security, unlike the US.)
Thus there is a strong culture of complex specialized gadgets and a weak general-purpose personal computer culture.
Japan's mobile web is completely controlled by the carriers. This just doesn't feel right. I want my Internet to be uncontrolled, unregulated. I don't want to pay any carrier (Rogers in my case) anything above my plan fees to be able to use the services of my phone.
Japan is obviously an advanced market (the article reads like science fiction in some places!), but at what cost do these advances come?
Apple proved this wrong, and I expect Google's android to do the same (well if they deliver what they announced)
Not really, some of the control shifted from the carriers to Apple, and the result isn't much better (or all that different overall)...
Where is Skype for iPhone? Why isn't tethering built into the iPhone? Why did they pull Netshare from the app store?
"I expect Google's android to do the same."
First, what can Android do that Windows Mobile and Symbian haven't already been doing for years? Android is just Google's attempt to get its advertisements displayed more often on mobile devices. It is the same thing that every advertising company has been trying to do in Japan, the US, and everywhere else ever since it's been possible to advertise on phones.
Authorized retailers for AT&T/Verizon/etc. cannot sell any devices that aren't approved by the respective carrier. If the carrier doesn't approve the Android devices then they can only be sold at stores that don't sell service contracts. Those independent stores are not successful in the US, because everybody wants a phone tied to a service contract so that the cost of the phone is subsidized. If the carriers don't subsidize Android phones they will be priced out of the market.
Further, any carrier can block any device. IMEI numbers are allocated in blocks and it isn't hard to identify the model based on the IMEI number. Without regulation ("net neutrality") they can also block any application or any protocol from operating on their network.
Also, your web browsing experience on the iPhone is independent from the carrier. For instance, on any other carrier, they cram their links and "preferred partners" on starting page.
Again, I agree there are limitations. If you are looking for complete "freedom", have a look at openmoko.
"everybody wants a phone tied to a service contract so that the cost of the phone is subsidized" disagree. look at prepaid phones.
It is true that the iPhone doesn't come with vendor customizations, which is nice. However, none of the AT&T phones I have purchased have been extensively customized either.
Most prepaid phones are subsidized by the carriers that distribute them (e.g. AT&T GoPhone), and those phones are locked to that carrier and have customized firmware. In the US, there are very few OEM phone sales. That is why you only see Nokia stores in the very biggest cities here (Chicago, New York, LA); I don't think there are any Sony-Ericsson shops in the US at all. OEM phones just don't sell.
Japan telecom companies were able to adopt 3G technologies much quicker than other places for this reason, and this technology became commonplace before it did in other countries. So mobile computing has had more time to develop and permeate their culture.
In any case, it's probably good that mobile internet in the US is developing more slowly and cautiously around the open internet instead of the carrier's content.
If the markets in other small countries (especially those with similar economies) behaved in the same way, the demand (and money to be made) would fuel industry to do the same.
Read up on traditional Japanese saying: "The Nail that Sticks Up will be hammered down." and conformity of Japanese culture.
http://www.snorko.org/cyberwrite/eng103/students/dianec.html
From a recent article titled "Why Apple isn't Japanese"
"One notorious case in point involves Shuji Nakamura, the brilliant scientist who invented a revolutionary energy-saving blue-diode light source only to find himself mired in years of litigation as he struggled to extract royalty payments from the company that had profited from his invention. Nakamura ultimately abandoned Japan for California. Fasol recalls asking scientists at the University of Tokyo if they considered his departure a blow. " 'No, not at all,' they told me. 'It might be good to have someone more ordinary'." "