Apple fans denounce Wired article. Japanese still not buying many iPhones.

Rick Martin

#1 – 11:50 PM February 28, 2009

I ran a poll asking Japanese twitter users whether they like the iPhone or not: http://twtpoll.com/r/hk8o7i

As it stands now, 17 Japanese people say they like the iPhone, and not a single individual has said they "hate" it.

Stevejobsisgod

#2 – 12:16 AM March 1, 2009

The original posting by Wired was obviously flawed in many ways. Of coarse it will take some time for the iPhone to saturate into the market. It’s an uphill battle in a market saturated by other companies whose phones are available out of vending machines. It is only a matter of time before they realize that any cell phone that was not made by apple will eventually be little more use than a coaster. Sometimes it angers me that peoples just cannot see how it dwarfs the other cell phones, but I can cope taking a breather as I look into a portrait of Steve Jobs and ask “what would Steve Jobs do.”

I will admit there are downfalls to finally adopting into Apple. Other things just start to lose their flavors, their energy in comparison to all things Apple. Pornography once had flair but I found I could only get off masturbating in front of a mirror once I found my new found coolness. Sometimes even then I did not feel worthy to get off on myself, it was weeks of nothing but friction burns. Then I put on a black turtleneck, I blew my wad right there and then in my pants as soon as I looked in the mirror. God, what I would do to be Steve Jobs love child. BFF Apple!!

Jack

#3 – 1:18 AM March 1, 2009

What a mess. This is actually the second time in a week I've read about a reporter warping basic facts to fit their needs. And as someone trained as a journalist, it's sickening.

I think that as newspaper and magazines struggle to survive, fact-checking and paying good money for real reporters will be things of the past. And hype and B.S. will replace it all.

Really sad. Watch out for it. And get ready for the new blog trend: Verifying facts and claims.

Seriously.

Camillo Miller

#4 – 2:33 AM March 1, 2009

I heard Chen is being sued again by Apple, this time because a careful reading of the article shows he wrote it on that hackintosh he should have destroyed weeks ago.

The deal was clear and the C&D letter from Cupertino stated as follows: "Brian, you destroy the hell-machine you created, and you won't have the shit beaten out of your bowels by the kickass robot Chris Anderson keeps in the closet in his office (the white one with the minibar) for us to ask him to use it when writers do not comply with THE RULE."

And yes, Prince McLean, A.K.A. Daniel Eran Dilger of Roughly Drafted fame, writes C&D letters for Apple.

millenomi

#5 – 5:00 AM March 1, 2009

You do manage to top both articles by saying, and I quote:

Meanwhile, the iPhone is still not a hit in Japan.

without giving a single figure or a source or anything.

zio_donnie

#6 – 5:58 AM March 1, 2009

well the original article has a point. in markets more advanced in cell phone tech (namely japan, europe, s.corea) the iphone is just an overpiced shinny gadget.

it's not the japanese that are atavistically against apple, it's the americans that have this bizarre fixation with apple and the perceived superiority of the jesus phone against technically better handsets.

just see the media coverage a single phone gets against the 100's of models that nokia, SE, samsung release every year. every other company would be flamed by hipsters for not updating the line yet apple has a single (and flawed) product and noone complains.

and the iphone is free in some european countries too with a 2 year contract but it does not sell as it does in america. people just want features like MMS, video and a decent camera more than they want an online shop. and bluetooth tethering and file transfers are so standard that they do not even count as features anymore. every dumbphone does that and i know at least 2 people that returned their iphones beleiving them faulty units for not doing this. many routinely use their phone as a 3g modem for a netbook instead of buing a usb modem and an extra plan for web browsing. that's a feature that one demands in a 500€ handset (specially since even entry level phones have it)

moreover nokia for example offers models and combinations of features for every need and budget not a single phone that has to be good for all.

what's so hard to understand? why some people actually feel HURT if a gadget gets bashed? boggles my mind.

Rob Beschizza

#7 – 7:19 AM March 1, 2009

I actually had the stats in here to begin with, but realized it would be much funnier to just omit them completely.

Anonymous Anonymous

#8 – 7:31 AM March 1, 2009

So far everyone I know here in Japan with an iPhone is a foreigner. (VERY limited sample, I realize.) I love Apple, and the Apple Store I go to is always hopping, but on the train, I'll rarely see an iPhone. (It was similar when I had my PDA.) Instead, I'll see people using their cellphones and game systems, and sometimes someone will be watching TV on their keitai.

Does the iPhone have the little hole for me to hang my Marimokkori collection? I'm not saying anything; I'm just saying...

usonia

#9 – 8:48 AM March 1, 2009

I'm a mac-person, and I thought that article made enough sense. I suppose that's the difference between being partial to Macs and being a mac LOYALIST. So the Japanese don't like non-Japanese tech, and would like to email videos to each otehr. Sounds like the Japanese my friends in Tokyo describe to me.

lecti

#10 – 8:58 AM March 1, 2009

"That's almost as long as February's issue of Wired!"

I want my coffee back.

meehawl

#11 – 9:07 AM March 1, 2009

It's ironic that the Apple Zealots are piling on Wired, and also somewhat instructive. For literally *decades* Wired has been one of the major Apple boosters. You can see the obvious editorial instructions and finessing within every issue of Wired, where "Apple", "Ipod", or "Iphone" has to be namechecked, either directly or by analogy, at least every half dozen pages or so. Even in articles not even vaguely Apple-related. Wired was doing this even in the bad old mid-90s when most of Apple's products were forgettable shite or just plain mistakes and its OS was a kludgy joke. Anyway, so when one of their reliably "on message" channels even *thinks* about being a little critical of the One True Company, they're all freaking out, going all assburger, and writing bizarrely long and boring refutations of heresy.

Anonymous Anonymous

#12 – 9:38 AM March 1, 2009

lol. Let's derail this completely: Apple is the new Israel?

blip

#13 – 10:02 AM March 1, 2009

I hate the journalism of Brian Chen.

Not actual hate of course, more indifference. Same thing, right?

The Lizardman

#14 – 10:30 AM March 1, 2009

Apple's biggest flaw - fanboys.

Enochrewt

#15 – 12:23 PM March 1, 2009

#12: Ahh you took the comment I was going to make and boiled it down to something more succinct.

Why do people have to be upset about their favorite product not selling well in another country? Why can't they just enjoy it and not be indignant about what others do?

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. - Mathew 6:5

Yeah, I just quoted the bible to characterize Apple fanboys, whattaboutit?

pecoto

#16 – 12:46 PM March 1, 2009

MEEHAWL is absolutely correct. Wired has been on the Apple bandwagon for years...just in the past six months there have been several articles just bubbling over with Apple praise. If anything Wired is guilty of not being analytical enough in their analysis of Apple products and activities. One critical article is hardly the end of the world, and it is true by all accounts that the iphone is hardly a great success in Japan. Enjoy your Iproducts if you must...just don't tromp on others for not jumping on the Ibandwagon if they do not prefer Apple products.

abq halsey

#17 – 1:29 PM March 1, 2009

weeaboos vs. apple fans: no matter who wins, we lose.

spazzm

#18 – 1:43 PM March 1, 2009

What's that saying, again - there's no something something like fanboy something something...

Anonymous Anonymous

#19 – 1:55 PM March 1, 2009

It would be true to say that the iPhone is not a sensation in Japan, that it's simply a competent phone in a very competitive market.

But what fun is that? What would web 'journalism' be without lots of hits and comments from the bile squad? Title an article with "Macbooks Contain Toxic Carcinogens" and you'll win a web-Pulitzer. (with which you can get a latte if you have $3.50)

Japanese love apple products. Go into an Apple store and it's full. Everyone has an iPod, and Mac ownership is higher than the US (by percentage of market).

But lets face it, in Japan the iPhone is nothing special. Four years ago I bought a phone in Japan for $200 USD. It has every feature of the iPhone but the touch screen. It had GPS, web, email, SMS, an app store yadda yadda... In addition it can view and record TV, has a bidirectional Japanese English dictionary, can shoot video, has a flash and a higher resolution camera. It has removable storage and much longer battery life.

So the iPhone is pretty damn late to the party in Japan. But its biggest missing feature is there is no place to attach phone straps. Seriously. Phone straps have become such a giant part of the culture that I can't imagine selling a phone without one.

Anonymous Anonymous

#20 – 2:26 PM March 1, 2009

Writers fuck up because of deadlines, not because they are party to schemes to destroy your favorite companies.

Neither, actually. It's because they feel compelled to make everything fit their narrative.

dculberson

#21 – 2:34 PM March 1, 2009

Zio, I'm confused.. is it free with contract or is it a "500€ handset?"

In the end, I think ABQ Halsey is right.

sirk

#22 – 2:46 PM March 1, 2009

I read the article when I got the magazine a week or so ago and thought it was very poorly written. I love Apple but can understand why the iphone wouldn't sell in Japan. Whenever I hear about the things the Japanese are doing on their cell phones, I am very impressed and depressed that the US is so far behind. I hope better articles about this make it into the mainstream so that more Americans can learn that we could use our devices for sooo much more than we are currently allowed by Singular, Verizon and AT&T. I give Apple props for dragging them all into the future bit by bit with the iphone's babystep improvements.

zio_donnie

#23 – 2:59 PM March 1, 2009

@17

it's both. you can have it for free with a 2 year contract or buy only the phone for something like 500€ and use it with your carrier.

they give it only with the top-end monthly plans and many people don't want monthly plans. in Italy for example 70-80% of the people have prepaid sims- infact i think that the carrier tie-in is an explanation of the poor sales, since those that actually get costly monthly plans are mostly business users that would get a nokia communicator or an e71 or a WinMo device instead of the iPhone which is more hipster/youth oriented.

theLadyfingers

#24 – 3:01 PM March 1, 2009

Wired has a department called "Cult of Mac".

Reading their Apple-fellating (blowjobs?) propaganda, you'd swear that 90% of computer users owned Macs, and that nothing ever happened in the world of Windows and Linux.

Linux in particular seems to be either something of a swear word or an exotic novelty from the fringes. It's nearly always accompanied by "nerd", "geek" and other reductive cracks, and it's only ever mentioned in comparative terms. There's no coverage at all of what's happening in the Linux world, which, when you know Linux people (I'm not one yet - need games) is massively negligent. All I know is that every nearly application I download and keep is a Windows version of a Linux application because that's where the coders reside.

And really, since they actually have a gaming section, the paucity of Windows news in comparison to Apple is just a little schizophrenic. I mean, are they in denial or something?

claud9999

#25 – 3:23 PM March 1, 2009

Rob, it would behoove you (as it does any journalist) to fully disclose that you work(ed?) for Wired magazine.

http://www.bornrich.org/entry/cool-geek-of-the-week-rob-beschizza/

Anonymous Anonymous

#26 – 3:25 PM March 1, 2009

@Claud9999: It's not journalism, it's a blog!

zio_donnie

#27 – 3:35 PM March 1, 2009

i like gadgets and i regularly read wired-gizmodo-engadget, and they all have the same attitude. worshiping apple and google.

check this post today in gizmodo:

http://i.gizmodo.com/5162271/fantastic-iphone-photography-has-forced-me-to-apologize-to-my-iphone

it's the same blog that some days ago smirked at samsung for putting out a 12mp phone. (useless and bloated they called it. apparently the iphone crappy blurry captions are art and good photos are bloat and "megapixel porn" WTF...)

not to talk about half the posts are about some crappy fart iphone app.

i am not a fanboy of whatever corporation (how retarded is this anyway) but apple minions that cry foul about their favourite corporation being treated unfairly or with negative bias by the press is comedy gold.

what i hate is that there are no unbiased tech blogs. why not actually cover something without the mandatory apple reference? they cover netbooks and they suck a priori because apple does not make one then proceed to put osx on them. they cover phones that range from 20 to 800$ and they are all inevitably inferior to the iphone. whatever OS from WinMo, Symbian, winxp to win7 and linux either sucks or rips apple or both- the list is endless.

actually Wired of all magazines blogs ending accused as biased and inaccurate against apple pretty much says it all.

Rob Beschizza

#28 – 5:06 PM March 1, 2009

I think most people already know that Boing Boing is Wired's paramilitary wing.

(P.S. This is a joke)

jan_raas

#29 – 5:07 PM March 1, 2009

For anyone who's in Tokyo in a week-a-half: might be interesting to attend this event to help settle the discussion to your own satisfaction, and more ... could be great fun!

Time: Thurs. March 12, 2009 from 7pm to 10pm
Location: The Pink Cow (www.thepinkcow.com)
Organizers: Mobile in Japan, Tokyo PC Users Group, Digital Eve
Cost: 1,000 yen, (incl. snacks, TPC member rates apply)

Event Description:
Join the Tokyo PC Users Group, Digital Eve Japan and the Mobile in Japan Community for an evening of debate on the merits and demerits of the increasing array of smartphones.

Learn about the benefits of a smartphone over a regular Japanese keitai, features of various brands (iPhone, Windows Mobile, Nokia, Blackberry, Palm and Android), and developments we can expect to see.

Please RSVP at: event-reg@mobileinjapan.com
http://www.mobileinjapan.com/events/smartphone-showdown

Rob Beschizza

#30 – 5:09 PM March 1, 2009

We love netbooks, Zio Donnie. We love them hard. My phone is a $35 e-ink Moto F3 and I run Windows 7.

WinMo really does suck, though. Come on.

danieleran

#31 – 5:18 PM March 1, 2009

ROB BESCHIZZA,

did I miss you spelling out the fact that your apologetic defense of a dishonest, fabricated Wired article as merely a "whoops" also failed to point out that you are a regular Wired writer? Were you paid to place this, or were you simply motivated by your allegiances to your mothership?

Further, trying to spin the problem off on "Angry Apple Fans" is very typical of Wired, but still pretty shameful. Ignore the fact that the story was misleading and dishonest and made up quotes to create a sensationalist story rather than report facts, just blame a scapegoat by combing comments to find angry rants.

Then turn around and insist that the iPhone is 'not selling,' despite facts that prove otherwise. Then take quotes out of context to suggest AppleInsider is "laced with recriminations" rather than simply pointing out the truth:

that Wired writes its headlines first, then looks to find quotes it can assemble to back up its link bait. And when it can't find them, its writers perfectly happy just fabricating them. And then editing the stories repeatedly to hide it.

And what does BoingBoing get for sucking up big media? This post was pretty shitty damage control. How about a brief apology instead, and then directing attention toward real stories rather than trying to insist that black is white and that anyone who says otherwise is probably a terrorist.

Rob Beschizza

#32 – 5:45 PM March 1, 2009

You can strap that bouncing knee down, as I don't work at or write for Wired. I have written for them as a freelancer, mostly at the Gadget Lab blog, but not for about a year. (That Born Rich profile is from mid-2007.)

I've never met Brian Chen, who is completely wrong about the Vaio P.

Nice insinuation of corruption, there! JOLLY GOOD!

0xdeadbeef

#33 – 6:16 PM March 1, 2009

RE: #26

LOL @ Roughly Drafted guy. You're on the fanboy shitlist now, Rob.

Rob Beschizza

#34 – 6:21 PM March 1, 2009

But I have a Mac too!

tfoster

#35 – 6:39 PM March 1, 2009

I think the reason the Japanese are net buying is because of the lack of a real keyboard. In some ways I think apple is out of touch in regard to what the market wants. Read on: http://life2beta.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/is-apple-growing-out-of-touch/

claud9999

#36 – 7:28 PM March 1, 2009

#26: Hmm, if he works for Wired, doesn't that make him a journalist?

Do BB writers use the blog in order to get press credentials to events?

A little bit of full-disclosure hurts nobody.

#28/Rob: I am aware of BoingBoing's tight relationship (ownership?) with Wired, but it's not made clear to readers...Where on the site does it spell out the relationship? All I can find is "Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States and other countries." Who dat?

FYI, I love the blogs and continue to read them, but I find this nebulous nature of the relationship bothersome/troublesome (for both BoingBoing and Wired.) Would you not be bothered if you found out that AppleInsider was partially owned or had a tight relationship with Apple?

Rob Beschizza

#37 – 8:19 PM March 1, 2009

Seriously, #28 was definitely a joke :)

Wired doesn't own us or have any other formal relationship with us. Boing Boing is independent. Not only that, but here at Boing Boing Gadgets, we're directly competing with the part of Wired that Chen works for.

That said, Mark, Cory, David and Xeni are correspondents for the mag; Joel managed Wired blogs for a while in 2006; and I freelanced for them until about a year ago.

We are kind of like a cooler, sexier version of Wired. On the other hand, they have better haircuts.

Rob Beschizza

#38 – 8:19 PM March 1, 2009

Here's a cool piece of disclosure: Daiji Hirata works for 6apart, who writes our website software.

KWillets

#39 – 11:04 PM March 1, 2009

Yeah, so did I for a while. I also once lived in Cupertino.

Will these smartphones blend?

zio_donnie

#40 – 4:06 AM March 2, 2009

@ 30

i was not refering to you personally it was just a rant against tech blogs in general.

btw the cries for full disclosure are simply hilarious. from what i understand there are maybe 10 people that blog regularly on tech blogs with some credibility or audience, and they are all connected in one way or another. most of them worked for wired at some point. so what?

Anonymous Anonymous

#41 – 6:11 AM March 2, 2009

Is it worth pointing out that Appleinsider uses the same ponderous prose for everything, positive or negative?

I don't know why they insist on sounding like a conservative 1950s broadsheet when describing leaked screenshots from a point update of Mac OS X but they do.

dculberson

#42 – 7:26 AM March 2, 2009

OMG, Rob is teh sucking up to teh big media!! LOLZ!

Oh wait, I got my idiom mixed up. Uhh, how's this:

You guys are sucking up to big media and the Jews you work for will soon enough fund another inside job implosion of a major US site in order to distract from the gradual sublimation of our civil rights to gay environmentalist Illuminati special interest groups! Enjoy your bias, sheeple!

Halloween Jack

#43 – 7:42 AM March 2, 2009

Anyone who thinks that Wired has been solidly in the Apple camp for "decades", simply because it has acknowledged that some of its little gadgets are popular, need to contemplate these cover articles, and especially the number of companies and concepts touted by Wired around the publication date of that first article that are no longer in existence. The implication was that Apple needed a miracle to survive, when all they needed to do was rehire Steve Jobs.

As for whether or not the Japanese are koo-koo for the iPhone, you know what? I really don't care. In fact, I'm willing to blame the Japanese for the obsession with cramming every little possible function into a gadget, at the expense of ease of use, that has infested gadgets for way too long.

claud9999

#44 – 8:16 AM March 2, 2009

#37/Rob, thanks for the clarification. I seriously didn't know what BB's relationship was with Wired, and was obviously mistaken about it being an ownership relationship.

#43/HJack, agreed 100%.

Oh, and I'm sure Apple has cried all the way to the bank. 8*) I would love to see some economic analysis of the Japanese cell phone market, with a particular, but not exclusive, focus on the iPhone's entry. Along the lines of "Japan, Inc." (a manga about the economy in general...Oh crap, just noticed that "Japan, Inc. Vol. 2" has been released. Neat!)

Anonymous Anonymous

#45 – 8:41 AM March 2, 2009

Hey everyone..

It's just a phone.

If people were this passionate about more substantial things in life, maybe society would make some progress.

LOL re-captcha text:

damaged authority

earthmann

#46 – 8:42 AM March 2, 2009

But seriously:

Why do the Japanese hate the Iphone?

KanedaJones

#47 – 3:50 PM March 2, 2009

@27
"it's the same blog that some days ago smirked at samsung for putting out a 12mp phone. (useless and bloated they called it. apparently the iphone crappy blurry captions are art and good photos are bloat and "megapixel porn" WTF...)"

uhm that is actualy a consistant stance and you are pointing out you disagree thats fine but saying art can be done with crappy rez (point one) and that 12 megapixels is overkill (point two) don't actualy conflict..

@37 Rob Beschizza
"We are kind of like a cooler, sexier version of Wired. On the other hand, they have better haircuts."

now THAT is a contradictary statement.. uhm, unless you like your sex with bald peoples? (joking joking joking!)

Wife uses the term "mac head" not to refer to fans of apple products but to refer to the type of artist that picks form over function.. this comes from the days when photoshop only ran on macs and all magazine layouts were seemingly done on macs with adobe products. I get mad when she uses it in what seems to me to be an totally off topic way, but she is consistant with its aplication.

for those wierded out by Wired's usual loyalty to mac and its blind spot to anything linux or windows? just look at the mag's glossy, skimpy on data, cult of science layout.. and think about my wife's definition of mac-head.

meehawl

#48 – 5:06 PM March 2, 2009

@43, only "one of the most persistent and unrepentant Apple fanboiz on BB"* could interpret a front-page Wired story (during its zenith), invoking religious iconography, and spending many, many pointless words obsessing over (what was then) an also-ran, rapidly declining Wintel-incompatible PC maker as evidence of not being devoutly in the Apple Church. It's about equivalent to reading a mediaeval Christian apologist writing about a less-than-impressive Pope during his advanced years and interpreting that as evidence of apostasy.

*See:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/13/apple-sez-jailbreaki.html#comment-409863

Daemon

#49 – 5:17 PM March 2, 2009

iRobots get upset at article that states that there are people that don't share their obsession! News at 11!

Best case scenario for the resolution of this: the apple fanboys and the crappy bloggers wipe each other out in a hail of electrons.

Anonymous Anonymous

#50 – 11:41 PM March 2, 2009

Other than people who work for Apple or their Japanese advertising company, why should anyone really care if the Japanese like the iPhone or not?