June 7, 2008
In Japan, Cellphones Have Become Too Complex to Use
An interesting read in Wired on what Japanese consumers want from their cell phone: multiple and complex features.
"There are tons of buttons, and different combinations or lengths of time yield different results,'" says Koh Aoki, an engineer who lives in Tokyo.
... Japan is a culture of spec sheets. When consumers go to electronics stores to buy a cellphone, they frequently line up the specifications side by side to compare them before deciding which one to buy.
Experimenting with different key combinations in search of new features is "good for killing time during a long commute," Aoki says, "but it's definitely not elegant."
So it's unclear whether Japanese consumers will ditch their complicated cellphones for Apple's easy-to-use iPhone, which will be sold in Japan by SoftBank by the end of the year.
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