Mobiles
Skype changes its mind – drops 3G call charges
Jul 22nd
That was quick: iPhone update: now supports multitasking, no additional charges for calling over 3G
Skype has dropped their plans to charge for 3G calls and have released an update to their iPhone client that finally supports multitasking.
At Skype, we believe that better call quality and better availability (which is achieved with an app capable of multitasking and/or making calls over 3G) lead to increased call frequency and longer calls. We also believe that the mobile world is in a period of significant change, for example, with some operators starting to move to tiered pricing models.
In light of that, we no longer have plans to charge a supplement to make calls over 3G. We’re delighted to make it easier for you to talk for even longer and do even more together using Skype.
Notice that they do not mention Video Calling – they will almost certainly charge for this in the future based on the survey in my previous post.
Skype trying to charge for Mobile
Jul 18th
I got an interesting invitation to fill in a survey about Skype Mobile. Skype on iPhone is an application that is deliberately ignored by Skype while they try and figure out how to make money from it. Their recent spat with Fring, who have implemented 3G Skype, background multitasking and video chat on iPhone 4 already, highlights their position on this. There is now no way to use Skype on Android after Fring had to remove the service since Skype refuse to release a client. They pulled the perfectly functional Windows Mobile version stating the quality wasn’t good enough.
The survey asks about what price plans would be acceptable to use Skype on mobile, enabling features such as 3G and Video chat. Would I pay 5.70GBP to use Skype even with the sweetener of 5.70GBP Skype credit (that expires in a month)? No way. I pay for my unlimited 3G data plan already.
Updated: Japan iPad 3G is NOT “not exactly” SIM-locked – Jobs says so
May 16th
There is a massive hullabaloo about Softbank’s exclusive deal with Apple for the 3G iPads here. Currently, you cannot get a 3G iPad without going through Softbank and signing up for a data plan (either 2 years or some terrible 4,000 yen per 1GB “offer”). This is in stark contrast to the fantastic deal Americans get in the US with AT&T.
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.
No native Japanese text in Windows Phone 7 … yet
Mar 16th
The first preview version of the Windows Phone 7 SDK is out and it doesn’t support Japanese (or non-Latin) text in the English ROM. This is a huge disappointment.
One of the major advantages the iPhone has over almost every other smartphone platform (and the major reason I bought mine in the first place – I needed Japanese language support) is the built in support for non-Latin languages and their input methods. This allows Apple to provide one single worldwide firmware edition.
Previous versions of Windows Mobile have required users to hack in Japanese fonts using the registry and rely on some awful third party hacks to get Japanese IMEs working. I seriously hope that before WP7 is finished, Microsoft just install worldwide fonts and IMEs like they started to do with Vista. There is no excuse. We are unlikely to get low-level access to the registry this time around to hack the support in ourselves to non-Japanese ROMs.
One of their slides is supposed to imply that the Metro theme “Celebrates Typography” –
– more like it totally ignores it. I suppose screens of square boxes fits the “Authentically Digital” principle.
iPhone 3G O2 finally unlocked
Nov 24th
O2 in the UK have finally properly unlocked my iPhone – no more software unlock needed to run it on Softbank. Hurrah!
XNA QR Codes
Jul 3rd
I’ve just pieced together a renderer for QR codes that outputs a texture instead of System.Drawing.Image objects (the Xbox .Net Framework version does not have access to the Drawing namespace). I’ll be using this as a way of uploading times on Avatar Kart to my server instead of copying a code which you had to do in Lines, my previous game. I will release the code once I’ve tidied it up a bit.
Mail.app and iPhone encode Japanese as Korean
Jul 27th
The latest of ridiculous bugs I have found after my switchover to Mac is that Korean takes precedence over Japanese when “Automatic” is selected as the encoding on Mail.app. It literally sees Japanese text as Korean and encodes emails as ISO-2022-KR (Korean) if both Japanese and Korean are selected under Languages.
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?
iPhone improvements for the UK and Japan
Jan 15th
El Reg is reporting that O2 has been told by Apple not to release sales figures until Apple say so.
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!
PocketStackz (PocketPC) review
Apr 10th
For Japanese language practice for my course I use PocketStackz by some chaps called “Minddate software”. Its an all-purpose language flashcard program with an emphasis on Asian languages (such as that an Asian Unicode font needs to be installed on your PocketPC).
What sets it apart is that you can immediately see what words you need to study at any point since the program sorts the words into “stacks” from “unknown” on the left to “known” on the right. If you get an answer wrong when testing yourself, the word moves towards the left, and visa versa if you get one right. This means when you have only a few hours until a vocab exam, you can quickly refresh the “most unknown” vocab in the quiz.
Vocab or kanji can be tested in pretty much any combination (romaji to kana, kana to kanji etc) and I find I get better results if I use it for short periods of time often. My test results even confirm this – weeks where I’ve spent 5 minutes a day with PocketStackz have seen perfect vocabulary test scores. You still need a drive to study, when when you don’t need to get your textbooks and pen and paper out (or those silly little “word cards”) its easier to find the time.
The software comes with a free PC application so you can make your own lists of vocabulary, but files for many textbooks and series of kanji (including the official joyo kanji) are available on the developers website. I had to make the kanji files for the Genki textbook series since they were not available, but this was painless using the PC software. Top stuff. 5/5.
Plus its only 19$ from Handango and they have a free trial (which I liked so much I bought it). Thats £8!
Buy or trial PocketStackz from Handango
Genki Japanese Textbook Vocab file for PocketStacks
Genki Japanese Textbook Kanji file for PocketStackz
Japanese keitai flashcards
Apr 2nd
Access Edo no Tango on your Japanese keitai/mobile phone at http://www.edandersen.com/tango or scan the QR code on the right:
Edo no Tango (Ed’s Tango, エドの単語) is a Flash Lite based Japanese language vocabulary and kanji flashcard utility. Developed to help my study, it currently contains lessons 10 through 17 from the Genki series of Japanese language textbooks
It uses Flash Lite 1.1 so runs on the vast majority of Japanese contract phones (the pre-paid ones can’t quite manage it). Give it a try! Press the 1 key when in the flashcards to display the button commands.
Postmortem
Flash Lite 1.1 is extremely basic – it only has the features of Flash 4. Flash Lite 2 is much better, supporting a Flash 7-esque feature set but at the time of creating the program was not on any Japanese phones yet – the closest you could get was a downloadable plugin for Nokia devices. There are several limitations of Flash Lite 1.1 which made development challenging:
- No Unicode support. This was the first major hurdle. Even on Japanese devices, it is impossible to display Japanese text using the device font. Flash Lite 2 fixes this, but in the mean time Japanese text needs to be encoded as vectors or images.
- 100kb network limit. It makes sense, but all the Japanese networks limit the size of any one file you download to around 99kb. This means with no Unicode, images or vectors for each kanji character soon add up.
- Dynamic network retrieval of data is limited to rudimentary text files with no XML support. No Unicode means retreiving data was impossible anyway, but this meant I had to create a seperate file for each set of flashcards, needlessly increasing data use and not making a very elegant solution.
- The phones have very limited memory, so my original idea of using 2bit images for each flashcard resulted in graphical corruption every time. Images would just turn red after showing four or five of them. In the end, 2bit images were converted into vectors using the “break apart” command.
I don’t need to use this now (I bought an off the shelf Pocket PC application to do the job) so I haven’t got round to adding new lessons. Its not simply a case of putting new data on a server unlike a Flash Lite 2 based version would be capable of.