iPhone Hysteria

[Coligny]

Apparently, safari ios8 now remember paypal password.
Which is and interesting feature.
Dramatically stupid and certainly linked to their new endeavour in electronic payment... But intredasting in a trainwreck kind of way...

[Samurai_Jerk]

Cursor management is also still an abomination.

Still? I think it's actually getting worse.

[Coligny]

Cursor management is also still an abomination.

Still? I think it's actually getting worse.

In fact,., agreed, especially with JB swipe selection not working anymore...

[Cyka UchuuJin]

i'm sure this has been answered, but i'm lazy and you're all my beloved minions, so someone will surely answer.

Ministry of gaijin peoples has granted me only 1 year intracompany transferee visa (apparently this is what they do for everyone, then when they see i can play nice, it is auto-renewed to 5), but as i understand, SoftBank won't give me an iPhone 6 on contract because permit is less than 2 years. SO...1)can i buy an unlocked phone at Apple in Japan, and 2) will Softbank change my existing sim (i've had the same number for 11 years and they've never taken it away because i'm grandfather claused under J-phone) to an iPhone sim? and do they do the unlimited data plans now? it's been so long since i had to do this, i'm still on White Plan from 8 years ago!

[yanpa]

no freakin idea, but Sotbank is no longer the only player in the Iphone market which might give you more options

[Coligny]

And phone numbers are transferabul...

Btw... The locked iphone is 1 or 2 man less than the applestore with most of the price difference being on contract rebates for a 2 years contract... Limut highway robbery...

[Cyka UchuuJin]

And phone numbers are transferabul...

Btw... The locked iphone is 1 or 2 man less than the applestore with most of the price difference being on contract rebates for a 2 years contract... Limut highway robbery...

fortunately the 1 or 2 man is not really an issue, because my company is covering it, but because i'm only on initial 1 year visa, i don't think soft bank will give me the phone. but i don't want to buy it at the apple store then find out it's locked! i want to keep my existing number!

[Samurai_Jerk]

i want to keep my existing number!

Maybe you didn't understand Coligny. Numbers are portable in Japan and have been for quite some time. You can keep your number regardless of which carrier you use.

[Cyka UchuuJin]

i want to keep my existing number!

Maybe you didn't understand Coligny. Numbers are portable in Japan and have been for quite some time. You can keep your number regardless of which carrier you use.

i get that numbers are portable, my question is more if i get an iPhone 6 somewhere (i.e... dubai airport where i am right now), can i go to soft bank and just ask them for an iPhone nano sim? last time i went and asked for that, they told me no, because i was no longer on a work permit and they only give those sim cards to those on min 2 year permit (possibly because they force you to buy the phone through them?).

[Coligny]

(i.e... dubai airport where i am right now),

!!! RUNNN !!!!

[Samurai_Jerk]

i want to keep my existing number!

Maybe you didn't understand Coligny. Numbers are portable in Japan and have been for quite some time. You can keep your number regardless of which carrier you use.

i get that numbers are portable, my question is more if i get an iPhone 6 somewhere (i.e... dubai airport where i am right now), can i go to soft bank and just ask them for an iPhone nano sim? last time i went and asked for that, they told me no, because i was no longer on a work permit and they only give those sim cards to those on min 2 year permit (possibly because they force you to buy the phone through them?).

Is your company incorporated in Japan? If so, maybe you can make the contract as a company and not an individual.

What kind of landing permission did you have last time? If you were here on a tourist visa or visa waiver (I'm not sure what passport you actually travel on), then they wouldn't have been able to make a new contract with you. However, I've never heard of someone not being able to get a cell phone contract because they only have permission to stay in Japan for a year or don't have permission to work. Students and kids on working holidays can get phones. So can people who are employed full-time but only have a one year period of stay. Sure they have to sign two-year contracts and if they break them they'll owe some money. Maybe it's something to do with you only wanting a SIM card.

[Cyka UchuuJin]

i want to keep my existing number!

Maybe you didn't understand Coligny. Numbers are portable in Japan and have been for quite some time. You can keep your number regardless of which carrier you use.

i get that numbers are portable, my question is more if i get an iPhone 6 somewhere (i.e... dubai airport where i am right now), can i go to soft bank and just ask them for an iPhone nano sim? last time i went and asked for that, they told me no, because i was no longer on a work permit and they only give those sim cards to those on min 2 year permit (possibly because they force you to buy the phone through them?).

Is your company incorporated in Japan? If so, maybe you can make the contract as a company and not an individual.

What kind of landing permission did you have last time? If you were here on a tourist visa or visa waiver (I'm not sure what passport you actually travel on), then they wouldn't have been able to make a new contract with you. However, I've never heard of someone not being able to get a cell phone contract because they only have permission to stay in Japan for a year or don't have permission to work. Students and kids on working holidays can get phones. So can people who are employed full-time but only have a one year period of stay. Sure they have to sign two-year contracts and if they break them they'll owe some money. Maybe it's something to do with you only wanting a SIM card.

i am now on intracompany transferee, so i am hoping it won't be a problem to swap my current very old sim for a nano sim.

i got the sim when it was still J-phone in 2004 and i was on a work permit. everything was on auto-debit from my credit card, and even after work permit expired, i was still able to keep on with the auto-debit contract even though i was here as a temp visitor. only thing was that they would not give me a new phone or an iPhone compatible sim.
anyway, i bought an unlocked iPhone 6 in dubai last night, so fingers crossed they'll give me the sim.

[Coligny]

At worse worse worse you can still get a prepaid data for the iphone.

Have to dive on that topic for an ipad... Supposedly docomo only... (Sometimes amazon.jp sellers are not really precise or even understanding what they sell....)

[Cyka UchuuJin]

so, after an hour waiting in soft bank ginza, here's the score:

-can't get a pocket wifi, because visa is only for 1 year (all intracompany transferees are given 1 year initially)
-can't swap my sim for an iPhone sim, because SoftBank policy is to not give iPhone sim cards without purchase of iPhone from SoftBank
-can't purchase an iPhone from SoftBank because visa is only for 1 year and it's minimum 2 year contract

now, i'm irritated. i've been with soft bank since 2004 when it was j-phone. same number, usage of 40-60K JPY per month, auto debit from credit card, never been a missed or late payment. everyone i work with has my soft bank number and keitai mail address, and it's on my business cards.

I've paid the 3240JPY for portability, anyone know if the other phone companies will let me make a contract and have an iphone sim?

[Doctor Stop]

Just stay away from those SoftBank assholes. Easy. There are other cellphone companies. If you still want to deal with those assholes, try another SoftBank store and you might hear a different story.

[Mike Oxlong]

Dunno if it helps...

http://www.japanmobiletech.com/2012/02/ ... s-for.html

[Cyka UchuuJin]

and there is a happy ending to the story...

Docomo was all too happy to welcome me and my soft bank number with open arms. along with a nice fat discount and free access to docomo wifi hotspots for switching to them.

in case anyone else comes across this situation, docomo's iPhone policy is that you have to have more than 3 months on your visa remaining, agree to 2 year contract, and sign a waiver acknowledging that they will not guarantee consistent 4G service if you bring your own iPhone.

[Cyka UchuuJin]

Dunno if it helps...

http://www.japanmobiletech.com/2012/02/ ... s-for.html

ta, read this after i made the switch. not sure if i have xi, i just know i have unlimited calls to all networks and landlines for 2700JPY

[Coligny]

How to negociate with terruri... Mmm... NTT:

image.jpg

Hazing a gun seems to help...

[yanpa]

So, any early adopters of the iWatch?

[Coligny]

So, any early adopters of the iWatch?

If the iwatch was a Iphone mini also working as a interwab/wifi access point(*) for an ipad i'd buy 2 on the spot.

Right now... If want to punch Tim Cook in the face, dig out Jobs corpse and make him run apple again... Because i gave up on trying to find what the fuck that watch was about...

(*)actually also waiting for some pompous moron to tell me there is not market for such a device. People don't need that and on and on...

[Grumpy Gramps]

It's good for you! Collects all your health data: Blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, haemoglobin etc. levels, heart rate, step counters etc and sends everything back to Apple, Facebook, Google and your insurance company, if you want it or not. So in case of death by hamburger-OD or anything/nothing, claims for you life-insurance can be denied, therefore premiums for life insurances will climb a little slower. It's good for you, really! If you don't buy one, your insurance company or Apple might suspect that you have something to hide and you don't want that to happen, believe you me!

[Coligny]

GoatZ finally available for IOs

image.jpg

Mixing all we love... Goats and zombies...

Features

Mandatory crafting system because everyone else is doing it

Zombies that bug out. There’s a pun here about actual living bugs, but we’re not going to bother

You can craft anything in the world, as long as it’s one of the half dozen weapons in the game

Zombies, because this is a zombie game, remember?

A pretty big new map with some stuff in it

Completely realistic survival mode where you have to eat every damn five minutes to survive like your grandmother

Turn humans into zombies and loot some crates. Like your grandmother...

In game physics that spazz out all the time.

MILLIONS OF BUGS! We're only eliminating the crash-bugs. Everything else is hilarious and we're keeping it.

Tons of unlockable new goats with special powers (wow, never thought I’d ever write that sentence a couple of years ago. Also hi mom)

[Cyka UchuuJin]

GoatZ finally available for IOs

image.jpg

Mixing all we love... Goats and zombies...

Features

Mandatory crafting system because everyone else is doing it

Zombies that bug out. There’s a pun here about actual living bugs, but we’re not going to bother

You can craft anything in the world, as long as it’s one of the half dozen weapons in the game

Zombies, because this is a zombie game, remember?

A pretty big new map with some stuff in it

Completely realistic survival mode where you have to eat every damn five minutes to survive like your grandmother

Turn humans into zombies and loot some crates. Like your grandmother...

In game physics that spazz out all the time.

MILLIONS OF BUGS! We're only eliminating the crash-bugs. Everything else is hilarious and we're keeping it.

Tons of unlockable new goats with special powers (wow, never thought I’d ever write that sentence a couple of years ago. Also hi mom)

holy moly, we'll never see Greji again...

[Coligny]

holy moly, we'll never see Greji again...

So no big changes then ...

[Coligny]

Ask siri :

What is 0 divided by 0


And get served with an highschooler worthy comeback...

[Coligny]

samsung trainwreck:

holy shit those guys are bad... Just missing Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell...
and cyanide pillz...

[Taro Toporific]

Somebody could not stand the 3-hour wait at the Genius Bar on Sundays.

Bomb threat at Apple store in Ginza, event halted
アップルストア 爆破予告でイベント中止 http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/2015120 ... 11000.html

apple^store.jpg

via Tokyo Reporter December 6, 2015

[Mike Oxlong]

Why Japan Got Over Emojis
The country created the adorable little icons. Then the iPhone corrupted them.

By plenty of measures, 2015 has been a banner year for emojis. A Welsh professor declared them the fastest growing language in the U.K. The New York Times used one in a headline, and a grid of them graced the cover of the New Yorker. Lawyers have cited emojis as evidence in dramatic courtroom trials. President Obama gave emojis a shout-out on the White House lawn, while Russian government officials threatened to ban same-sex emoji couples. To cap it all off, in November the Oxford Dictionaries declared the tears-of-joy emoji the “word” of the year.

It now feels hard to imagine online communication without emojis, even if their explosion in popularity among English speakers only dates to October 2011, when Apple’s iOS 5 update bestowed the little icons upon millions of iPhones. (Gmail launched emoji support several years earlier, as did a number of third-party emoji apps, but neither of these developments paved the way for their mainstream adoption in the way that putting them on the iPhone’s virtual keyboard did.) With so much hype and excitement building in such a short timeframe, it’s fair to ask: Are we experiencing an emoji bubble? And what might life after emojis look like? We can find some possible answers to those questions in the birthplace of the emoji: Japan.

The very first emojis appeared on a handset sold by the company J-Phone (now Softbank) in 1997, but high prices kept it out of the hands of average citizens. The direct ancestors of the emoji we know and use today debuted in Japan in 1999. And now? “The emoji boom is over here in Japan,” says Shigetaka Kurita, the man widely credited with creating the adorable little runes. “They’re still around, they’re still pervasive, but they aren’t a fad anymore,” he says in his Tokyo office. He ventures that when Obama mentioned emojis on the White House lawn, “I suspect most Japanese people’s response was, ‘wow, emoji are still popular over there!?’ ”

Understanding the rise and fall of emojis in their homeland requires a little history. When Japanese telecom leader DoCoMo introduced proto-emojis in 1999, they were a core feature of the company’s i-mode service, the nation’s first to bring the Internet to cellphones. In comparison to modern standards, the crude dot-matrix designs are something like digital versions of the primitive single-celled organisms that once emerged from the primordial ooze. These monochromatic buttons share little more than a basic concept with the slickly designed, subtly drop-shaded smileys and figurines we know today. Kurita ran the team that designed and implemented them.

Kurita originally envisioned emojis as a workaround for cellphone users to deploy rudimentary graphics despite the chokingly slow connection speeds of the era. But the little faces and hearts were quickly repurposed by young Japanese women, who found them irresistibly kawaii—cute—and began peppering their text messages with them. Their boyfriends followed suit, and before long emoji were booming. Surprisingly, DoCoMo declined to trademark the designs. “Headquarters discussed it with legal counsel,” says Kurita, “and the decision was that if you’re talking 12 pixels on a side, there isn’t much room for individual expression.” But this in turn allowed emojis to be adopted—some might say swiped—by DoCoMo’s competitors, allowing a single phone company’s feature to snowball into a massive nationwide phenomenon.

Emojis were such a phenomenon, in fact, that they nearly sank the Japanese launch of the iPhone in 2008. Mac desktops and laptops had long sold well in Japan, even during dark periods for the company in its home country. Nobody expected anything less from the sleek, high-tech iPhone. There was just one problem: zero emoji capability. Unlike consumers in every other corner of the planet, Japanese customers stayed away from the iPhone in droves. It didn’t matter that it was a better piece of technology than anything else in Japanese stores. In a desperate bid to appease potential customers turned off by the lack of such a popular feature on the expensive phones, Masayoshi Son, president of Apple’s Japanese retail partner Softbank, convened an emergency press conference, declaring he had “convinced Apple that email without emoji isn’t email in Japan.”

It must have been quite the pitch. Apple quickly released a local update adding bare-bones emoji capability to Japanese iPhones. The company didn’t stop there. Behind the scenes, Apple worked in parallel with Google to “translate” emojis from the multiple conflicting formats used by the Japanese telecoms into Unicode, the universally accepted standard for text encoding on computers around the world. This would give emojis their green card for widespread use outside of Japan. But the efforts would also, ironically, pave the way for emojis’ downfall in their home country.

“Most Japanese people simply don’t find Apple’s emoji kawaii from a fundamental design standpoint,” Kurita said. “That style has moved away from what the emoji originally were.” His vision was more akin to the iconography of traffic signs or warning labels than mascots or characters. “The image in my mind was something close to text. Less e [picture] and more moji [letter]. So that no matter who looked at them, they could use them as icons, without taste coming into play. They were like pictograms or icons to me. Not decorations, but tools for communication, the same regardless of who used them.” The idea was to avoid stylistic flourishes so that emojis would be as universal as possible.

By the time Google and Apple began “localizing” the emoji for use on Western computers and phones a decade later, display technology had leapfrogged the old monochromatic screens upon which Kurita’s first emojis dwelled. The resulting demand for crisper graphics and more detailed imagery forced Western designers to "fill in the blanks" with their own interpretations, occasionally to the horror of Japanese emoji specialists.

Much of Japanese pop design, and kawaii design in particular, is open-ended and ambiguous by nature. What kind of animal is Pikachu? What’s that expression on Hello Kitty’s face? Leaving these things susceptible to interpretation allows characters to resonate with the broadest possible audience. Clarifying the emojis’ designs necessarily narrowed the number of potential interpretations of each one, raising questions of taste and style, which defeated the original concept underlying their popularity in Japan.

This shouldn’t be confused with cultural imperialism...

http://www.slate.com/articles/technolog ... ingle.html

[Coligny]

Smileys predate emojis... And were doing the same job...
Back in the VT100 terminal days...
But yeah sure, them japs invented everything from hot water to the wheel, electricity and the space shuttle...