Mobile

Gaming

Women and mobile games: part 3 of 3

This rather huge survey from Kurashi How Labs looked at women and smartphone games.

This final part found a small number of people buying in-game stuff, but even there most just used pocket money. I’ve never paid real money, but my wife borrows all the money I collect from Google Rewards and recently Google Pay cash back to spend on clothes for some dress-up game.

Talking about paying for dress-up games, here’s a screen shot from the grand-daddy of them all, Second Life, featuring two cats sitting in a Japanese style toilet:

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By Ken Y-N, 5 years5 years ago

Gaming

Women and mobile games: part 2 of 3

This rather huge survey from Kurashi How Labs looked at women and smartphone games.

My current game has a handy display of how many days you’ve logged in as you log in, so I can tell you that I’ve been playing for 199 days. The last game I was addicted to, Two Dots, I quit after about a year as I’d basically beaten the game; I’d got three stars on every single level, and there was no new content on the horizon, so I quit.

I’ve seen this game advertised on the monitors in the train, but you probably get put on a list if you download it:

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By Ken Y-N, 5 years5 years ago

Lifestyle

Women and mobile games: part 1 of 3

This rather huge survey from Kurashi How Labs looked at women and smartphone games and will be published over three days this week.

I’m not a woman, but I’ve currently got just one game on my phone
that I’m hopelessly addicted to! I’m not telling you how long I waste every day on it, but most of the play time is either at home or on the train to and from the office.
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By Ken Y-N, 5 years5 years ago

Google Map almost thrice as popular as iPhone’s own Map

This survey from TesTee Lab looked at iPhone mapping apps.

I’m on Android, but I’d be lost (groan) without Google Map. I’ve only tried Yahoo! Map through web sites like Facebook, but I’ve not been impressed. In Japan, Google is very bilingual-friendly (too friendly sometimes, as it sometimes searches in the wrong language) and the memory of places one has previously visited is exceptionally useful. The trains are full of adverts for NAVITIME, and it looks good and exceptionally detailed, but although it claims to be free for basic features, I worry it will be nagware, so I’ve never bothered trying. Its vehicle navigation features appear to be almost as good as dedicated car navigation systems, but as I only drive when I rent a car, and the cars come with navigation as standard, I never bother with smartphone apps.

One thing I did learn from the report was the abbreviation NPS, Net Promoter Score, which is a value indicating how much people love or hate a particular brand, etc. I’m not sure how useful the figures are in this case, so rather than report the exact numbers, I’ll just summarise the outcome (hint: people hate Apple’s stock app).

Here’s why you want to use a map app when you’re in Japan; this is just a fraction of the Tokyo area lines – the subway and all private lines are missing for a start:

Then again, I survived quite happily long before apps were ever invented; kids today, bah humbug!
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By Ken Y-N, 5 years ago

Lifestyle

Instagram favourite camera app of female university students

This interesting little survey was from TesTee Lab!, a survey company that specialises inthe youth demographic, and looked at female college students’ use of cameras and photo manipulation software.

A lot of the photo manipulation applications are unknown to me; I never do much more than the default filters on Instagram, and I don’t take enough selfies – well, I do take enough, absolutely zero – to feel the need to touch up my skin. On the other hand, I see occasionally on TV that Japanese celebs claim to do no-make selfies; while technically they might have been wearing no cosmetics at the time the shutter was pressed, they’ve very obviously airbrushed their skin and more often than not tweaked their chin and/or jaw line.

I’ve always wanted to buy these clip-on lenses for my smartphone, and as good fortune would have it, I was at a conference today and one of the goodies I got from IBM Japan was a set of three clip-on lenses. I could post the test fisheye selfie, but I don’t want to scare away too many of my readers! Perhaps I should download one of these apps and see if my mug can be “improved”…

Here’s some random Japanese taking a selfie:

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By Ken Y-N, 5 years ago

Hardware

Majority of Japanese have printed smartphone photos

This interesting survey from Macromill’s Honote took a look at smartphone photography, printing, and New Year greetings.

I’ve never printed a smartphone photo; I did long, long ago print out a photo from a feature phone to make my own personalised stickers. I use a third-party service to print out the photo side of my New Year postcards, but I’d love a service whereby I could easily send postcards without knowing people’s physical addresses, just by sending them an invitation through Facebook or whatever.

Here’s some people capturing next year’s postcard image, perhaps:

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By Ken Y-N, 6 years6 years ago

Hardware

Memories of feature phones that haven’t faded

Although smartphones are far more feature-rich, this survey from goo Ranking took a look at what feature phone memories people felt most nostalgic for.

From an internal point of view, feature phones have been completely superceded by Android and iOS-powered phones, but externally, a few local manufacturers are making Android-based flip-phones, which incidentally I think I can upgrade my pretty useless and too featureless to be called a feature phone Wi-Fi-based work mobile to, which might be interesting from a technical point of view to see what they are doing.

My best memory is a variant of number 3, the button that was one push to open the phone.

I remember this phone! One Seg television, and the screen half on a rather over-large joint that could flip either vertically or horizontally.

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By Ken Y-N, 6 years ago

Mobile

Eye care supplement company finds smartphone users could use eye care supplements

This survey into smartphone use is not much more than a thinly-veiled advertisement for Fancl’s Sumaho Enkin, a blueberry-based supplement that allegedly helps eyes tired from too much smartphone use, but I think it is sufficiently interesting regardless.

I never touch my smartphone in bed (wife won’t allow it!) and I have to return home if I leave my smartphone, as it has my train ticket on it!

This turned up when I searched for Blueberry Eye:

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By Ken Y-N, 6 years6 years ago

Hardware

One in four thinking about a new iPhone, most want more battery life

Might you buy the new iPhone 7? graph of japanese statistics With the new iPhone 7 expected to be announced next week, this is a timely survey reported on by Internetcom and conducted by Macromill into the new iPhone.

The rumours I’ve heard are no headphone jack; Bluetooth only, which I can believe Apple would do regardless of customer complaints; and support for Japan’s Felica NFC chip standard, to allow it to be used on public transport here, which I would be surprised to see.
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By Ken Y-N, 7 years ago

Gaming

Almost all Japanese heard of Pokemon GO, 2 in 5 smartphone owners played it

Do you know what Pokemon GO is? graph of japanese statistics

With Pokemon GO taking the world by storm, I suppose it is no surprise that this survey from Mobile Marketing Data Labo into Pokemon GO usage found that it was just as popular over here.

I am not in the least bit interested in it, and I don’t understand what all the fuss is about amongst adults who really should know better than to be faffing about chasing beasties that are normally found in McDonalds Happy Meals. Grow up the lot of you, bah humbug.

Here instead is an erotic Pikachu:

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By Ken Y-N, 7 years ago