Softbank appears to be announcing to the press that there will be a “SIM Lock” (SIMロック).

http://plusd.itmedia.co.jp/mobile/articles/1005/10/news030.html

ところが、5月8日にソフトバンクモバイルが公表したiPad販売に関する情報では、日本国内のソフトバンクショップやソフトバンクケータイ取扱店で販売されるiPadのWi-Fi＋3G版は、ソフトバンクモバイルの3Gネットワークでしか使えないように、SIMロックがかかっているというアナウンスがあった。

“According to information released by Softbank on May 8, iPad wi-fi+3G models sold from Softbank shops will be SIM locked so that they can only connect to Softbank Mobile’s network.

I think they are lying. I don’t believe that the devices are SIM locked in any way. The only “lock” is that you must sign up to Softbank to get one, and they won’t sell you a microSIM for an international model.

Mobileinjapan.com reported a response from Steve Jobs stating that

Actually, the version of iPad sold in Japan does accept international SIMs.

I decided to email him myself and I got a reply:

An email reply from Jobs appears to be a rite of passage for bloggers now – I have replied asking for clarity but he doesn’t appear to get into conversations unless you are really interesting (which I’m not).

Based on the reply above, are we meant to believe that they have developed a new SIM-locking system that unlocks your device when you leave Japan? Of course they haven’t, that would be stupid. If the devices are SIM-locked, then international microSIMs simply would not work in them. Therefore, they are not SIM-locked.

What I believe Jobs is referring to by “locking” is that you can only buy a 3G iPad after “locking” yourself into Softbank. Docomo and E-mobile (both with networks that would support the iPad) are now unable to sell wireless plans. Not because of any technical reason, but because they cannot sell the iPads themselves, and all 3G iPad owners will be locked into 2 year contracts.

This is why I don’t think the iPads are SIM locked – simply because they don’t have to be. Normal Japanese phones have carrier specific settings built in (access points, MMS gateways etc) with no way of changing them so switching a SIM card would never work. Softbank must be very scared of the prospect of the market opening up like Europe.

Update: Well, he replied.

Not exactly SIM-locked? What does that mean? Maybe they HAVE developed a new SIM locking system that uses the GPS to determine the country you are in, or iTunes unlocks the device when you insert a non-Japan microSIM.

Another update: The Softbank Sucks blog appears to think that there is a software lock on Japanese iPads (possibly all iPads?) that is only active when the SIM Mobile Country Code is Japan’s. Meaning, if the SIM is a Japanese SIM, it must be a Softbank SIM. Absolutely appalling if true. The only way Docomo would be able to get around it is if they lied about the country code on their SIMs.

Try it yourself: make sure both Korean and Japanese are in the Languages list (so they show both show up in Mail.app’s Message > Text Encoding) and send an email containing Japanese text when encoding is set to “Automatic”. View the full message source and see that it encodes the message as ISO-2022-KR, not ShiftJIS or UTF-8 which it should. You have to completely remove Korean from the list if you want to use Automatic encoding, or manually select the encoding yourself every time. I cannot find a setting to force an encoding (er, UTF-8) on every email you send.

This is not a problem if the recipient is a PC/Mac user since the mail client will sort it out – but sending mails to a Japanese phone, which obviously has no idea what to do with Korean text encoding (and can’t suss out that its actually Japanese text) means that the lucky recipient gets 文字化け、mojibake, jumbled garbage.

Its even worse on the iPhone

If you ever decide to turn Korean keyboards on in the Language settings, or switch to Korean, iPhone appears to add Korean to the Languages list when choosing its own encoding. However, you cannot change the encoding manually on iPhone, or ever remove Korean from the list, even if you then disable Korean input.
The net result? You can never send Japanese mails to Japanese mobile phones ever again on your iPhone, until you do a full system restore. Which I am now doing. If you reply to a mail that was sent to you in ShiftJIS, the iPhone is at least clever enough to reply in the same encoding type but you are SOL if you want to compose a new one.
Rubbish. Windows Mobile has an option to “always send mail as UTF-8″. I wonder how many iPhone users in Japan have fallen foul of this?

As you can see, the Facebook and Super Monkey Ball banners have been recompressed. This effects webpages aswell – meaning downloading new wallpapers or browsing Flickr is a waste of time. However, if you change the username for the O2 access point under Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network to “bypass” from the default “vertigo” like so:

The compression is now turned off! Now the “whole internet in your pocket” is actually the whole internet in your pocket.

UK carrier O2 has confirmed that Apple has placed it under a gagging order to prevent it from publicly revealing how many iPhone handsets it’s sold to date.

The company’s head of media relations, Simon Lloyd, told Register Hardware that it’s a stipulation within the company’s sales agreement with Apple that O2 can’t release any such details until the Mac maker says so.

Lloyd would only say that O2’s UK iPhone sales in the two weeks up to Christmas period were “in line” with its expectations.

This is because the iPhone is completely bombing in the UK. Being in a University environment (where students always like tech gadgets), the only iPhone I have seen in the wild is an unlocked hacked-to-bits US model. The iPod Touch is undoubtedly a sound investment at just shy of £200 if you want a taste of “next gen” touchscreen interfaces and you are far better off buying an iPod Touch for the fancy new iPod bits and getting a free phone on a cheaper contract. You would have to be a complete mug (or rich fashionista) to buy an iPhone at £269 and be locked into an 18-month contract with O2 at £35 a month.

If the iPhone actually did half the things standard UK mobiles have done for years, it would maybe be an acceptable high-end phone model, but its not. The US mobile industry is a couple of years behind ours (people import our Nokia N95s for instance) so the iPhone looks like a fantastic bit of kit in the US.

The funniest thing is that the iPhone will be on DoCoMo in Japan soon – and it will need a complete feature overhaul to be even classed as a ケイタイ (keitai, mobile phone) out there, let alone here. To work in the Japanese market, Apple need to add:

• 3G support. GSM/EDGE/GPRS do not exist there.
• MMS support for their mobile email with emoticons (絵文字, emoji). Without emoticons, users will get gibberish when recieving mails from “proper” mobile phones in Japan.
• Java application downloads for iAppli
• Flash Lite for the on-demand games that are springing up on the Japanese mobile internet
• QR barcodes. Apple should be pioneering these in the rest of the world already with their clout, but aren’t. The possibility is enormous here – in a music magazine, a QR code could be next to a new album review: the user scans it and can buy it from iTunes immediately over the air, no text input required. This happens in Japan already for all sorts of mobile content – Apple could be making this popular everywhere.

The Japanese text input is already programmed and is damn good on the iPod Touch, so that doesn’t need doing. Stuff like IC chips aren’t required, so its only those five points that I cannot see Apple surviving without. Windows Mobile phones released in Japan on Softbank now get an application for MMS with emoticons because the original models were seen as pretty basic without it.

Sort it out Apple!