世論 What Japan Thinks

When I wrote my iPhone R.I.P. article last month a lot of people told me I was completely wrong for making such a big deal out of emoji as the key feature missing on Apple’s iPhone in Japan.

However, at a recent press conference, Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, the Japanese carrier for the iPhone, said the following about the planned update of the iPhone software and the addition of emoji:

“Email without emoticons can’t be email in Japan. We persuaded Apple Computer (to localize iPhones for the Japanese market).”

Since I’m tooting my own blog’s horn here, I’d also like to point out that Apple still need to add a retro CHTML (iMode-like) browser and a strap hook.