This straightforward survey from MMD Labo looked at internet reservations by smartphone.
Looking at the options, I’m surprised that “travel” or “flights” do not appear on the list. Given that “other” is less than 2%, they must have been explicitly excluded, but for what reason is not explained.
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The full survey is much more detailed, so if you want a deep dive, please visit their site and purchase the full survey results.
Note that ahamo is docomo’s cheap plan, povo au’s, and LINEMO SoftBank’s, each costing just under 3,000 yen all-in for 20gb data and 5 minutes free per phone call.
In Q2 I’m not surprised that Rakuten is the most-investigated, as they have been flooding the airwaves with exceptionally irritating adverts offering completely free service for the first gigabyte of data port month.
MMD Labo recently conducted a survey into smartphone photography and smartphone photo printing.
I fall into the two or three photos per month, usually food photos that never gets further than Google Map reviews, although I do occasionally upload to my personal Instagram account quality photos like this:
I’ve printed out my own smartphone photos exactly once; it was for my father-in-law’s funeral, and rather than pay 30,000 yen or so for a professional memorial photo for him, we found one on my smartphone and I printed it off at a nearby convenience store for the grand total of 50 yen, and framed it in a photo frame we found lying about his flat…
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This survey from MMD Labo into mobile service provider usage shows three-quarters of Japanese using one of the three full-service, full-price carriers, but with all three launching new low-cost self-service plans, it will be interesting to see how these figures change.
I’m a long-term Docomo/Android/Sharp Aquos user myself, and I am considering switching to Docomo’s new plan ahamo, which gives you 20Gb and 5 minutes free per call for about 3,000 yen including tax.
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A recent survey from MMD Labo looked at user satisfaction with the Big Three Plus One mobile carriers of docomo, au, SoftBank and the new kid, Rakuten UN-LIMIT, specifically at their data services.
The Rakuten UN-LIMIT advertisement is horrendously shouty and I cringe whenever it comes on TV, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t suffer too!
I just checked the comments, and most of them are complaining – best was “Instead of lowering the cost, lower the volume!”
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This quite comprehensive survey was published just a few days before the iPhone 12 went on sale, but it’s out now, so please excuse my slightly late translation of MMD Labo’s look at iPhone 12 purchasing opinions.
I’m quite anti-Apple after a few bad experiences with Mac computers; I understand their appeal but I dislike their user interface philosophy of ease-of-use over control.
I’m also extremely ambivalent on 5G as a consumer technology; coverage in Japan is almost non-existent outside a tight area around major train stations, and adverts with all these holograms suggesting flawless telepresence are just unrealisable pipedreams. The extremely low latency is good, though, but I doubt the average consumer will really notice.
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The company FROSK, who make the smartphone tool SmartBeat, which analyses application crashes and errors, conducted a survey into smartphone app usage and crashes.
I’m still working at home, but I don’t think any app genre usage has increased. I’m anti-social at the best of times, and being at home there’s no need to email my wife. Work stuff is all on my work laptop, and the occasional Zoom call is done on my personal desktop. I don’t do home delivery, and going to the physical supermarket is about the only exercise I get!
I don’t have any regular crashes, and hardly even irregular crashes on my Android phone, so I find it very surprising that nearly half the sample reports weekly crashes, and on top of that certain genres of apps crash daily! Do any of my readers have such troubles?
Here’s an iPhone that has crashed into the pavement…
Following on from women and mobile games, I now present a survey from Pre-Can Teens Labo by GMO into teenage schoolgirls and mobile phones.
This is another rather large survey with lots of interesting data to consume. Of all these YouTubers and Instagrammers, there are only two I’ve heard of. I won’t touch TikTok, though, as I trust them even less than I do LINE!
Fake News here seems to be neither Trump’s definition, news he doesn’t like, nor the original meaning of deliberately false information shared via web sites made to look like legitimate sources to inflame political debate, but just people posting flat-out lies.
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Following on from women and mobile games, I now present a survey from Pre-Can Teens Labo by GMO into teenage schoolgirls and mobile phones.
This is another rather large survey with lots of interesting data to consume. LINE is, as you can see, the messenger app for not just schoolgirls, but just about everyone in Japan. I avoid it like the plague, though as I don’t trust them with my phonebook, and my wife has the problem that once a corporate account makes contact, it’s pretty much impossible to block them, and even if you manage to they can reconnect.
On the other hand, Facebook seems remarkably low, but I’ve heard in America only old people use Facebook, so perhaps that is a trend in Japan too.
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