Friday, July 11, 2008
The apple man
g3 iphone
On the Japanese market, the iPhone's capabilities are less revolutionary, where people have for years used tech-heavy local phones for restaurant searches, e-mail, music downloads, reading digital novels and electronic shopping.
The latest Japanese cell phones have two key features absent on the iPhone -- digital TV broadcast reception and the "electronic wallet" for making payments at stores and vending machines equipped with special electronic readers.
But they don't have the iPhone's nifty touch screen or glamour image. By Friday morning, the line at the Softbank Corp. store in Tokyo had grown to more than 1,000 people, and the phone quickly sold out.
"Just look at this obviously innovative design," Yuki Kurita, 23, said as he emerged from buying his iPhone, carrying bags of clothing and a skateboard he had used as a chair during his wait outside the Tokyo store. "I am so thrilled just thinking about how I get to touch this."
The phone went on sale first in New Zealand, where hundreds of people lined up outside stores in New Zealand's main cities to snap it up right at midnight -- 8 a.m. Thursday in New York.
Steve Jobs knows what people want," Web developer Lucinda McCullough told the Christchurch Press newspaper, referring to Apple's chief executive. "And I need a ew phone."
In Germany, T-Mobile stores reported brisk sales, particularly in Munich, Hamburg and Cologne, said spokeswoman Marion Kessing.
On the Japanese market, the iPhone's capabilities are less revolutionary, where people have for years used tech-heavy local phones for restaurant searches, e-mail, music downloads, reading digital novels and electronic shopping.
The latest Japanese cell phones have two key features absent on the iPhone -- digital TV broadcast reception and the "electronic wallet" for making payments at stores and vending machines equipped with special electronic readers.
But they don't have the iPhone's nifty touch screen or glamour image. By Friday morning, the line at the Softbank Corp. store in Tokyo had grown to more than 1,000 people, and the phone quickly sold out.
"Just look at this obviously innovative design," Yuki Kurita, 23, said as he emerged from buying his iPhone, carrying bags of clothing and a skateboard he had used as a chair during his wait outside the Tokyo store. "I am so thrilled just thinking about how I get to touch this."
The phone went on sale first in New Zealand, where hundreds of people lined up outside stores in New Zealand's main cities to snap it up right at midnight -- 8 a.m. Thursday in New York.
Steve Jobs knows what people want," Web developer Lucinda McCullough told the Christchurch Press newspaper, referring to Apple's chief executive. "And I need a ew phone."
In Germany, T-Mobile stores reported brisk sales, particularly in Munich, Hamburg and Cologne, said spokeswoman Marion Kessing.
