“And then there’s the matter of compartmentalization. A large portion of Japanese citizens live with only a cellphone as their computing device — not a personal computer, said Hideshi Hamaguchi, a concept creator and chief operating officer of LUNARR. And the problem with the iPhone is it depends on a computer for syncing media and running software updates via iTunes.”
Link: Why the Japanese Hate the iPhone (wired.com)
Update: Nobuyuki Hayashi argues he was misquoted in the article (thanks Bruce)
Related:
you must have missed the rebuttal by Nobuyuki Hayashi on how he was misquoted.
http://blog.nobi.cc/2009/02/my-view-of-how-iphone-is-doing-in-japan-by-nobi-nobuyuki-hayashi.html
Wow. What an interesting story…if not least for the resulting controvesy and official Wired editorial clarifications – reads like a great drama!
Also, great title on this post! Sent me off on an tangent to watch Tom Wait’s “Big in Japan” clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SUDZ30_PXg&feature=related