Lack of smartphones make Japanese users wish more

Despite the common believe that Japan market is flooded with advanced smartphones from domestic vendors, it is not exactly so. While some well-known research powerhouses put Japanese vendors into the world's top smartphone rankings just because those vendors' phones are based on local flavors of Symbian or Linux, in Japan they are considered just as regular phones, advanced but still phones. In Japan, the smartphone definition goes beyond just simple notion of phone's operating system and includes other conditions such as a PDA-like form factor with bigger display and full text keyboard or touch screen. Surprisingly, just few models in Japan meet these conditions, making Japan's market the one with the lowest smartphone penetration. Recent study by Impress also found that Japanese users are more familiar with Windows Mobile OS and they expect their next smartphone to run on Windows rather than Apple's OS X or Android OS. This is partially explained by the WM's head start in Japan. Though the users' attitude will undoubtedly change with Android smartphones taking a full assault on Japan's shores this year.

Most Popular Smartphones
Apple	iPhone 3G
Apple	iPhone 3Gs
Sharp	Advanced W-ZERO3 (es)
Sharp	Willcom 03
Sharp	W-ZERO3 (es)
HTC	Touch Diamond (S21HT)
Sharp	W-ZERO3
HTC	EMonster (S11HT)
Toshiba	T-01A
HTC	HT-03A
RIM	Blackberry Bold

NTT DoCoMo considering Sony Ericsson Android Xperia X10

Things look bright for Android in Japan. Following the release of Japan's first Android smartphone - the HTC Magic earlier this year, NTT DoCoMo is considering to ship its second Android device. Most likely it will be the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, a 1GHz Snapdragon processor-equipped Android smartphone with a 4-inch touchscreen recently announced by vendor. During the new handset lineup introduction, the DoCoMo's CEO said the operator is evaluating the possibility of selling the X10 during next year's spring-summer season. Other Japan's major operators including KDDI au and Softbank are also said preparing Android devices for launch next year. At the last press conference Softbank shared some details about its future Android smartphone saying it would feature the Qualcomm's 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, 3.7-inch OLED touchscreen and support Android's application store Marketplace. While the maker remains unknown, something tells me it might be Samsung.

NSW releases Android multimedia player

Nippon System Ware (NSW) announced the availability of nswPlayer for Android devices. nswPlayer is a multimedia player capable of playing back video, audio and album art. NSW claims that there are not so many all-in-one multimedia players in Android marketplace right now, which makes their product a kind of special. Another appealing point is the simplicity of nwsPlayer's UI.

Compatibility
File formats:	H.264/AVC、MPEG4、3GPP、MP3、AAC、AMR、PNG、JPEG、GIF、BITMAP

Source: NSW

Japanese propose a fridge running on Android

Android group in Japan proposed to equip refrigerators with Android in order for the them to communicate with the cloud. In a futuristic scenario, the Android fridge would have LCD, cellular radio, browser, barcode reader and RFID sensor to intelligently track the expiration dates of food and decide what dishes to cook based on the fridge's contents and online recipes. If some ingredients are missing, the fridge would take the initiative to do online price comparison and order the delivery. As an additional responsibility, the fridge might have a sensor to detect an earthquake and communicate the data to the server.

Source: Android group

In Japan, 60% have no idea what Android is

With the growing anticipation of the launch of HTC G1, the first Android based mobile device to be released this week in the US by T-Mobile, Japan’s market research firm iShare conducted an online survey of 422 respondents between 20 and 40 years old to measure the awareness of Android in Japan.

The results are very telling and not that surprising. The majority of respondents (60%) have never heard about Android, with another 25.6% knowing only the Android’s name.

Well-known among early adopters and techies Android will face its greatest challenge of winning the hearts of consumers. It will be interesting to see how T-Mobile USA intends to differentiate the first Android device from HTC, a very unimpressive piece of hardware (from a design point of view). It doesn’t have much space for maneuver. The looks and price are often the deciding factors in user’s choice of the mobile phone. And after iPhone, the appeal of smooth Web experience may not be that new and enough to get attention from end-users.

Source: iShare