Japao Movel

Japao Movel,

Artigo do The Guardian sobre a lideranca dos japoneses em relacao ao uso de servicos com tecnologias moveis, principalmente celulares. Abaixo alguns trechos:

“Lost in Japan? Let your mobile’s GPS guide you. Bored? Download the latest manga comic or an e-book to read on the train, or go shopping and pay by swishing your mobile in front of the till, because the phone is also an electronic wallet.You can also collect e-coupons, pay bills, play Final Fantasy, update your blog and pay and check into hotels wirelessly. Soon the airport check-in will be history in Japan, too, as the e-ticket in your phone becomes your boarding pass.

Nearly all are services based on the success of the mobile web in Japan, where in a nation of 127 million the number of mobile internet subscribers recently passed 100 million. Not for nothing are the Japanese now known as the Thumb Tribe – a tribe who, for the most part, prefer their mobile to the fixed internet. Apart from the killer application – email – 80% say they use other functions too. Downloading music is popular (80% have tried it), as is TV for mobile – half of its subscribers use it regularly. Three quarters of users say they enjoy online clothes shopping with their mobile at least once a month. What they are less keen on is video calling: in Japan, as in the UK, 90% say “no thanks, never”. And as for using the mobile as a modem – to link to the internet – that’s very expensive in Japan. (…)

It is this urban lifestyle where convenience is the key which has necessitated the rise of the all-in-one mobile plus those very funky handsets. By comparison Apple’s iPhone is a mere 2.5G plaything. In Japan, which is already into 3G and heading towards 4G, they make mobiles look good and work hard.