Thursday, October 26, 2006

Japan's Softbank offering free iPods

Much thanks to John for the welcome. I'm currently studying in Tokyo, Japan. My 17" MacBook Pro is currently my only computer while I'm in Japan, and I'm very happy with it - being a "switcher" after using PCs for most of my life.

I will say that the Apple scene isn't as big in Japan as it is in the US or Europe, but in Tokyo it is indeed accessible, and there are Japanese magazines dedicated to Macs. The iPod, of course, is the most well-known Apple product here in Japan.

Anyway, Softbank (formerly Vodafone) has started to offer free iPods to people who sign up with Softbank for more than 26 months. In addition, Softbank has offered free calls to other Softbank subscribers in a push to gain market share in the very competitive cellphone market of Japan.

Personally, I have have AU by KDDI, and their "Lismo" music service has no support for Macs, despite being the first cell-phone music service in Japan. Also my W41CA cellphone has no driver (or anything else) support in OSX.

1 comment:

Pablo said...

Hi there, I live in tokyo and have the same ketai (w41ca)you mentionned. I can]t find a driver for it for iSync but found this page :

http://handmakes.vox.com/library/posts/tags/w41ca/

The guy seems to have done it somehow. Unfortunately, my kanji reading leaves a lot to be desired and I can]t quite figure out how he did it... If you fare better, wou;d you mind letting me know? email is pablo dot berlanga at gmail dot com (sorry trying to avoid spambots)

Cheers